(Is “Are big societies optimal for human happiness/quality of life,” a fair rephrasing of your question?)
I’ve been asking myself similar questions lately. As pointed out “made to live” implies things that never happened, in that humans weren’t created, nor were the current societies/civilizations ever consciously designed or created. They just sort of happened.
Since both humans and societies got to where they are through mostly unthinking processes, it’s easy to see how things didn’t end up optimal.
Humans were hunter-gatherers for most of their existence. It’s hard to intuitively grasp how long a time that is, but I find this quote helpful (source):
If the history of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 p. m. we adopted agriculture.
Without wanting to get into bad evolutionary sciences, I think it’s reasonably fair that even modern humans are mostly adapted for the hunter-gatherer life, with a couple of more modern modules thrown in. It’s also reasonably fair that humans were mostly “made” to live in small tribes, hunting and gathering.
Agriculture (and later writing, the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, computers...) gave us reasons to not be hunter-gatherers any more and my naive assessment is that a good number of those reasons are good ones. It’s just that our bodies and brains haven’t caught up.
So where am I going with this? I’m not sure. What I’m trying to say is that I think it’s better to say that (our) big societies weren’t made for humans (at least, they’re not optimal for humans), rather than saying that humans weren’t made for big societies.
I like your post, but I’d reverse your punchline: humans were indeed not made for big societies, but big societies were made for humans. The problem is that our societies are a retrofit to try to coordinate humans at scales we were never meant for, hence the non-optimality.
(Is “Are big societies optimal for human happiness/quality of life,” a fair rephrasing of your question?)
That’s again a pretty trival answer. No society isn’t optimal. We don’t live in utopia.
Since both humans and societies got to where they are through mostly unthinking processes
Nation states are created via human made law and a lot of the ways humans interact with each other socially in modern society got thought up by humans as well.
Without wanting to get into bad evolutionary sciences, I think it’s reasonably fair that even modern humans are mostly adapted for the hunter-gatherer life, with a couple of more modern modules thrown in. It’s also reasonably fair that humans were mostly “made” to live in small tribes, hunting and gathering.
What does that mean? That modern humans have a lower lifespan than they would have in a hunter-gatherer life? That happiness is higher?
(Is “Are big societies optimal for human happiness/quality of life,” a fair rephrasing of your question?)
I’ve been asking myself similar questions lately. As pointed out “made to live” implies things that never happened, in that humans weren’t created, nor were the current societies/civilizations ever consciously designed or created. They just sort of happened.
Since both humans and societies got to where they are through mostly unthinking processes, it’s easy to see how things didn’t end up optimal.
Humans were hunter-gatherers for most of their existence. It’s hard to intuitively grasp how long a time that is, but I find this quote helpful (source):
Without wanting to get into bad evolutionary sciences, I think it’s reasonably fair that even modern humans are mostly adapted for the hunter-gatherer life, with a couple of more modern modules thrown in. It’s also reasonably fair that humans were mostly “made” to live in small tribes, hunting and gathering.
Agriculture (and later writing, the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, computers...) gave us reasons to not be hunter-gatherers any more and my naive assessment is that a good number of those reasons are good ones. It’s just that our bodies and brains haven’t caught up.
So where am I going with this? I’m not sure. What I’m trying to say is that I think it’s better to say that (our) big societies weren’t made for humans (at least, they’re not optimal for humans), rather than saying that humans weren’t made for big societies.
I like your post, but I’d reverse your punchline: humans were indeed not made for big societies, but big societies were made for humans. The problem is that our societies are a retrofit to try to coordinate humans at scales we were never meant for, hence the non-optimality.
Thank you for your answer i was thinking the same way ! And yes it was the meaning of my question thank you !
That’s again a pretty trival answer. No society isn’t optimal. We don’t live in utopia.
Nation states are created via human made law and a lot of the ways humans interact with each other socially in modern society got thought up by humans as well.
What does that mean? That modern humans have a lower lifespan than they would have in a hunter-gatherer life? That happiness is higher?