Early humans weren’t conquerors but wanderers who mingled with other human species. The new view of human migration is much friendlier, less vicious & competitive. It's important to update pop culture notions human of evolution https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-origins-look-ever-more-tangled-with-gene-and-fossil-discoveries/ by @dvergano
@laurahelmuth @dvergano
That is a comforting thought: it’s not our barbaric history that should define us, but rather, our ancestors’ nomadic nature.
@patmadigan @laurahelmuth @dvergano And the fact that they liked to get freaky!
@Legit_Spaghetti @patmadigan @laurahelmuth @dvergano it's like the old sci-fi trope. If we met aliens we'd be horny for them as it's a survival trait.
This is why we have Neanderthal DNA as well as others in our genetics.
@laurahelmuth @dvergano I wonder if the less competitive nature was due to a much lower population.
@Methylcobalamin @laurahelmuth @dvergano If this is your take-away, can I gently suggest you look into the connection between population control and eugenics, racism, colonialism, etc. Overpopulation narratives often play into some pretty terrible ideas about how we should structure our societies, and we'll have to leave those ideas behind if we wanna survive the anthropocene.
@quietmarc @Methylcobalamin @laurahelmuth @dvergano ???
@Methylcobalamin
@laurahelmuth @dvergano
I think it was less that they weren't as competitive and more that they were integrated and fewer of their genes survive because they were a smaller population.
@Methylcobalamin @laurahelmuth @dvergano They were less competitive than portrayed, not necessarily less competitive than our modern selves.
Hollywood has trained us to believe that in a crisis, we go for each other's throats, but actual crisis demonstrates that we tend to band together and support each other.
I'm suspicious of any assumptions about our "natural" behavior and instead look to how our more recent societies are training us.
@swiftone @laurahelmuth @dvergano Thank you for the polite and non-hostile reply.
@laurahelmuth @dvergano up the cooperators
@laurahelmuth @dvergano wooly mammoth says wut?
Love the grin on this guy's face @laurahelmuth @dvergano
@maggiefox @laurahelmuth @dvergano
He's just gonna get on his makeshift raft and see what's out there and say hello.
@maggiefox @laurahelmuth @dvergano You'd be grinning too if you smashed your distant descendants' preconceived notions of how you lived!
@maggiefox @dvergano Such a handsome devil!
@laurahelmuth @maggiefox @dvergano "How *you* doin'?"
@laurahelmuth @dvergano the idea of humans as constantly violent is a weird one. It's a giant risk and expenditure of energy, not exactly a survival trait
@laurahelmuth @dvergano it always felt a bit suspicious, considering violence at that level on regural basis would lead to humans dying out
@laurahelmuth @dvergano this also conflicts with post apocalypse image of people spending incredible energy to fight over resources, not cooperating.
@peteriskrisjanis @laurahelmuth @dvergano it always felt suspicious since horrible people have always make massive attempts to internally justify horrible things their doing to themsleves …
(The second thing was that this so called human-nature was always negative and not a single positive aspect too it which makes no sense)
@laurahelmuth @dvergano as Jane Goodall said it is our ability to cooperate that has made us the most successful of the primates.
We need to keep evolving and moving away from primate patriarchy into something that is balanced.
@laurahelmuth @dvergano But that answers to MY POINT - why do we need tanks, why do we need bombs, missiles, battle-ships and NUCLEAR WEAPONS??
Why, in THIS WORLD OF STEEL, do even those kind of things find a place in Our REALITY??
Welcome to Earth!
@laurahelmuth @dvergano If he bleached his hair he’d be a dead ringer for Marjorie Taylor Greene…though I suspect he’s orders of magnitude more intelligent. #USpol
@laurahelmuth @dvergano
.
oh sure, just destroy the whole X-Men series why don't you 
@laurahelmuth @dvergano Tim Allen's a Neanderthal?
Gus Posey @laurahelmuth That dude is high AF.
@laurahelmuth @dvergano
Who's his dentist..jeez what bs
My headcanon: We’re constantly being told conflict and competition are our defaults precisely because community and cooperation actually are.
“Culture” is attempting to override nature.
@Aphrodite @laurahelmuth @dvergano were told this by those who do said conflict so they can feel good about doing conflict and shit, and pretend it’s an acceptable way to solve problems sometimes ^^
I like the idea. I’d love to read a longer more academic work on it
@laurahelmuth @dvergano this seems so obvious too when every cut could mean death or pain until the end of your life you kinda want to avoid conflict as much as possible if you have the brain capacity to put this together.
@laurahelmuth @dvergano
Up until what, 8,000 BCE at the very earliest we weren’t running on nothing but conflict, per the Chalice and the Blade (and per my book about the Chalice and the Blade, free on my profile). 
@laurahelmuth @dvergano Survival of The Friendliest.
@laurahelmuth @dvergano @sentient_water
This squad’s with the #SelfishGene