Harry had once read a famous book called Chimpanzee Politics. The book had described how an adult chimpanzee named Luit had confronted the aging alpha, Yeroen, with the help of a young, recently matured chimpanzee named Nikkie. Nikkie had not intervened directly in the fights between Luit and Yeroen, but had prevented Yeroen’s other supporters in the tribe from coming to his aid, distracting them whenever a confrontation developed between Luit and Yeroen. And in time Luit had won, and become the new alpha, with Nikkie as the second most powerful...
...though it hadn’t taken very long after that for Nikkie to form an alliance with the defeated Yeroen, overthrow Luit, and become the new new alpha.
It really made you appreciate what millions of years of hominids trying to outwit each other—an evolutionary arms race without limit—had led to in the way of increased mental capacity.
’Cause, y’know, a human would have totally seen that one coming.
There are some other noteworthy ideas in the space as well—for instance the idea that omega-3 fats represented a nutritional constraint that got lifted by dietary changes. That hypothesis is laid out in The Driving Force.
No doubt all of these ideas have something to them—but the “memes did it” hypothesis is the one that gets my gold star these days.
I thought that was the consensus.
HPMoR, chapter 24
That one is called the Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis—and it is covered in The Runaway Brain—and by Robin Dunbar in his “The Social Brain Hypothesis”.
There are some other noteworthy ideas in the space as well—for instance the idea that omega-3 fats represented a nutritional constraint that got lifted by dietary changes. That hypothesis is laid out in The Driving Force.
No doubt all of these ideas have something to them—but the “memes did it” hypothesis is the one that gets my gold star these days.