 Boom, what's up everyone? Welcome to simulation. I'm your host now in sake and we are still on site in San Jose at triple a the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting. We are now so grateful to be able to sit down with dr. Augustine Fuentes. Hello. Hi That's my pleasure really excited the hairs looking so good right now I Can't grow a hair like that. Look at this. Let's get involved up there I'm I'm super pumped. Let me give a background on Augustine So we have the program chair for 2017's triple a annual meeting Professor of anthropology at University of Notre Dame in Indiana since about 2002 ish but so he did a PhD at Berkeley in anthropology and He's done things everything from chasing monkeys and jungles and cities to exploring the lives of evolutionary Ancestors to examining what people actually do across the globe and he's authored six six books 14 edited volumes 150 papers there's in chapter something like that. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of work it's a lot of work and Everything from misconceptions about human nature specifically in areas of race sex and aggression To create a spark how imagination made humans exceptional will be talking about a bunch of these different things now But before we you know go into all the current stuff, you know, who were you as a kid and how did you pick up anthropology? So when I was a kid, I didn't know anthropology existed. I like stuff, right? I like I like the past I like the present. I love trying to figure out what makes this tick what makes us what makes other animals I've always really been excited about that and I remember getting to college sitting in a Class a college classroom, which it turned out was an anthro class and they were sort of generally going over What we're gonna do and I thought wait This is a thing that there's actually something that touches on sort of humans the past the future the present other animals all connected It's like, okay. Yeah, I think I could do this What was the I guess, you know, where did they get? Where where did that happen? Where was the well? I mean, so there's a lot of different things that have happened over the course of my life I've always been interested in asking questions. I'm really to the point of being really annoying I'm interested in how stuff works And I'm particularly interested in how humans work and why humans work and how we can talk about them What does that mean for us? Right? So by the time I got to college. I was really excited I was gonna double major in theater and biology and it turns out they don't like it when you make science and humanities So they're like, no, no, you can't do that But and then I had heard about, you know, some anthro classes and I remember sitting in an anthoclass from the professor Phyllis Dolanow who would eventually be my graduate advisor and I'm sitting there and is a class on primate behavior And she starts lecturing and talking about this chimpanzee or this langur And she's using the pronoun she again and again referring to these monkeys and apes and it dawned on me I'd never heard a professor use the pronoun she in general sense when talking like what's going on here? This is pushing against what I, you know, usually hear and the more I got into anthropology The more I understood that asking questions about who we are in a deep sense and what we do in a deep sense really is exciting. I would love to help get that Those these questions and the whys of the deep sense to the roots of children being born around the world Yeah, I think that's gonna give us to some good question asking and some good Kind of inquisitive spirit about how to best build an engineer at the world moving forward Okay, so I can totally see with your energy just like wanting to like ask questions And I can see how you also got really excited about about anthropology. So now Okay, so now as you know, what was what was was was there a link between um between that moment and about primates especially and then your interest in that and PhD and whatnot I mean, I think if you if you ask this sort of big picture what what clicked right What clicked for me was because I've always been interested in biology the body, right? And I've always so been really interested in behavior and culture and literature and history And to see that there was a space here where you could link the biology the bones that the muscles the guts The dna to our behavior to the way we are in the world to our closest relatives the primates, but yet not Detach that from history and institutions and politics and power to actually try to mix all those things together I was like, oh, yeah, this is what I want to do I started by being really interested in the other primates because to understand what humans are We have to understand where we sit in the sort of broader world, right? We are primates So understanding what other monkeys and apes do and what we share with them and what we don't share with them Really sets this baseline So I became very interested not only in studying the human but studying the human as part of the primate landscape To start with and then I moved forward to focus more on the human But to start with you got to know what you're comparing. Let's let's talk about that What did you learn as you were figuring out the comparisons? So what I learned really quickly and this is from I've spent now decades studying Other primates monkeys and apes in the field in the field and in captivity and in captivity So what did I really learn? Well that humans think a lot of themselves A lot of the stuff that we think is totally human That's actually primate this strong social connections the role of social networks and connectivity the whole reality that our lives are just multi-layered complex social day-to-day interfaces with all of these different individuals that have different personalities in different ways of being That's primate. Yeah, right now humans put a special twist on But to understand that was actually liberating and challenging at the same time liberating because it's like okay We can actually understand a lot about the human experience by studying broadly But then we have to focus down because evolution is about continuities and discontinuities And so the continuities between us and the other primates are critical in understanding the core the base of what humans are or can be But the discontinuities The last bit of our evolution that trajectory in humans is what's most exciting because that shows us what the capacity of human is Yeah, because it's just What is it less than 1% genetically different? Yeah, I mean we have to be careful though. So like yeah, we share, you know 98.6 or whatever 98 percent of our DNA with the chimpanzee. We also share 37 percent with a daffodil Right, what does that mean? What's really important is this sort of evolutionary commonalities So, you know about 8 to 10 million years ago the human lineage and the chimp and other ape lineages sort of split out And sort of went their ways now Doesn't mean we stop influencing one another and we're messing with chimps horribly right now But what it means is that for the last six seven eight nine million years Our evolutionary trajectories have been particular relative to everything else and it's that particular history. It's really interesting Okay, okay. Yeah, the particularity rather than the necessary necessity to talk about the specific genetic right, right So, I mean there are genetic differences, but people overplay what that means or doesn't mean, right? So all humans are 99.9 percent identical genetically. Yeah, right. That's cool. But what's your particular trajectory versus mine? And it's not be completely for lives. Exactly. Exactly. And it's not just about our DNA, right? It's never just about our DNA. DNA does nothing by itself We spend way too much talking about DNA How you behave in the environment and what yeah, so because I specifically reference that point about the DNA difference Just because it's it's interesting because of the what would it look like for one more, right? Augmentation evolution because we got to The celestial bodies just like where do we go after the next one? Well, I think there's something interesting in this whole giant panoply of life, right? Like if we would just take that let's just take the the sort of genetic diversity of the planet or whatever humans are This little teeny teeny sort of insignificant like in the sense of what genomic diversity looks like across all living things However when you talk about what humans are doing to the planet and doing to each other and doing to everything else We're huge. That's the question, right? So the real exciting thing about understanding the human and human evolution is how how did that happen? What's going on? Why are humans so important so amazing and so horrible all at the same time? So we're we're one of I think 10 million species on the planet and then we're but we're by far at the top of the I don't know where the top we're definitely messing with the whole system. We are yeah We're now we figured out we are stewards of earth and we have to figure out how to do that properly birth out of this womb And go out into the space. Yeah, so I want I want to ask you about the I want to get a little bit new into the nuance of the primate primate studies The way you explain social networks, there's been a lot of Of videos that are now being released about how kind of like in many ways there's like alpha chimps Yeah, and so there's like, you know, there's people here that have succeeded in many ways How did they succeed or people out in the business world? Whatever? So yeah, what is your social sort of Yeah, this is a great topic because I think this is misrepresented all the time We have always this notion about height dominance hierarchies, right? There's an alpha and then you know on top and it's almost an alpha always a male right alpha male the male wolf Even though frequently the alpha is female, but Let's break that down for a moment. What does that really mean? This actually whole idea of these dominance hierarchies comes from this idea of priority of access to resources So, you know, you put a peanut in the middle of four monkeys Three are gonna be like, I'm not touching it. That guy's gonna get it and that guy will come and take it Right. We're like, oh, that's the alpha What we're really seeing is this complex set of relationships of histories of personal dynamics We're not seeing some endemic genetic component that makes one alpha and another not So what we're really seeing when we talk about dominant hierarchies We're seeing really complicated social realities that change over time We don't talk about it that way. We tend to think about what there's the high ranking. There's the low ranking It's like that stuff switches that stuff moves around and it's all contingent It's all dependent upon their they're growing up and who they hung out with and who their friends were And what opportunities they had or didn't have that's true for humans It's true for chimpanzees And then what was the word you used you said and it was like access to resources? Yeah, yeah, yeah, priority of access to resources Priority of access to resources is dependent on your hierarchical position Or your relationships or your histories. So for example in macaque monkeys They're pretty clear dominance hierarchies for many of the different species And so like a high ranking male will come by and get access to the food, right? Others won't even bother But in some cases that high ranking male will be around and then this one female Who has three offspring That male come up and that male won't do anything as long as that female is around and those offspring outrank the adult male Social dependence context and it's all about social relationships and histories and experience So dominance is not something inherent of an individual, right? It's a process It's a pattern and we have to remember that because we think we tend to think well This is a type a personality or this is a dominant male. It's like well. Why how where when it's not in his genes the the It's so cool when you talk about going out into the field and seeing the behaviors first and then being able to see how we Um, the we're very hubrisistic in many ways. And so when you look at chimps, you kind of get that Oh, like I get I get where we evolve from right now when did How does this relate with your current professing because do you are you are you teaching these types of Of teachings to students are they coming out sometimes with you to the field? Do you still go out to the field? What are you teaching students? What have been some cool realizations of teaching for you? So, I mean, I think there's a lot of things so, you know a lot of my work is looking at the other primates It's also looking at a human biology. It's also looking at the way in which we conceive of and think about human nature What does it mean to be human right whether it comes sex aggression gender racism all that kind of stuff It's funny though because going into the field to watch non-human primates watch macaque monkeys for example in the field Gives humans the students in this case. You said not a human primates. Yeah I mean I like to use other primates that most people say non-human primates just because to remind it. That's the monkeys These are the humans. We're both primates. Yeah, that's good. Okay, so you got humans You got primate. You got monkeys both being primates. What's amazing about taking students into the field, right in this context is that They're forced to sit and watch other complex social mammals hang out be with each other sort of live their lives And and they can reflect even if subconsciously on our own experience in the way in which we are even more complex than that But watching monkeys is humbling Because a lot of the stuff that we think we're all we're so smart. We're so socially dense, you know humans do all this stuff So do a lot of other organisms Right, and so we got to step back a little bit just because we can destroy a rainforest Doesn't mean we know how to get along better than all of those things living in the rainforest And so taking students into the field is a great way to sort of show them. What does the world look like? How does the world behave? And then they can bring that back into the classroom in the classroom I try to do that with information about human biology about human history and about human society, right? So mixing together all of these different data from Ranges of anthropological biological sociological and historical sources To sort of bring them together and offer a little bit of a glimpse of what does reality look like? It's always messy. It's always entangled. It's always You know complicated But it's awesome And then if we can convey that in anthropology in the classroom and we have the opportunity more than anyone else If we can convey that we're going to prepare those students no matter what they go on to do with this skill set Right They'll know it's complicated, but they'll be able to say something about that complexity Yes And there's this process of just being mindful when you are in the field and I really I'm just so Fascinated by field work now. Okay. Now. Now. What is give us an example of when you connect in the biological and the cultural? Ties into field work when they come back. How yeah, what does that look like? Well, so let's think some of the work I've been doing for the last couple decades is Particularly in this area called ethno primatology, right? So it's thinking about humans and other primates entangled in ecologies Co-constructing their relationships in different places at the planet. I've done a lot of work in Bali Many years ago looking at macaque monkeys humans Balinese hinduism temples, forests rivers Tourism all of these things connected together and they kind of cohabitate. Yeah, they co-create each other They co they shape those interfaces whether we're talking about, you know, sharing the same space We're talking about the economic input from tourists who come to see monkeys for the local villages Or whether we're talking about the potential exchange of bacteria and viruses all of those levels And so when you when you think about this from an in an anthropological context when you ask students to sort of reflect on this it's that crazy Mesh of reality that acts to inspire the students to think that they can take this information and go somewhere else Maybe some of the students who work with me I know some of the students who work with me on monkeys and humans and interfaces have gone on to do all sorts of different things But in their new lives in their new worlds They're like well, I understand these things are all related. They're entangled. They're pushing and pulling on each other and in anthropology One of our underlying goals or what we say is we want to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar And once you break this Bubble of well everything is the way I just lived and realize there are many many successful ways to be human or to be primate All of a sudden the world opens up a little bit to more possibility and more hope even in times of great tragedy Yeah, I love how uh, how you said that make the familiar strange and the strange familiar That's really important and just this is inherently a very multidisciplinary field So that that and our show is as well. So when I when I hear you Talk about augmenting the perception of students to see things as multidisciplinary. That's fascinating Augustine give us your Kind of like your some of your most profound realizations of dealing with students or with teaching students What have been some of your favorites? Well, I think I think I mean, there's a couple things that just jump out I think one of the most important things is is teaching students Is a great humbling experience, right? Because even in in in the classes that haven't been great You can see those sparks, right that that that potential of those aha moments That this desire to know what's going on. How does stuff work? Even in the most blase students every now and then you hook them with something interesting and and all of a sudden It's there and and that that always gives me great confidence that that is messed up as the world is And is getting There are so many people a majority of people want to do something good in the world They want to figure it out and teaching actually constantly reinforces that because if you do a decent job If you open the space for the students to be the co-producers of knowledge Stuff happens stuff gets done That's exciting So that's that's that's one. I think another thing in the eyes of the students To learn and to build value into the world Exactly and and another thing is that by teaching I learn and I know that's a trite phrase People say this all the time But I can't tell you every time I step into the classroom every time I start a lecture or a workshop or some sort of engagement It's material. I know I wrote the stuff. Maybe I've even wrote the book we're using and here I'm going along and someone says something or someone introduces a perspective or someone just raises their hand and asks me to slow down And sort of re-explained this and in those cases all of a sudden, you know, my my mind is blown I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I did not even recognize this or I didn't understand these two things Or I didn't see how this relates and so constantly being pushed by students and graduate students in particular Or great because they're like, you know Junior colleagues in the sense that they have so much knowledge and so much excitement They don't have the experience that you do but they push in really amazing ways And so it's those mind-blowing events, right? And that's like hanging out with friends, right or family or sometimes you sit there It's when someone is just like, well, what why is that and pushes you a little bit That's when you get really that's when you learn, right complacency is the worst thing that can happen, right? And and in a good classroom, there's no complacency because you're constantly getting pushed I love that it's it's so true when you're asked a question by like a junior colleague And then you gain a new sense of seeing things because they're teaching you right. Um, that's that's really that's really Even teaching you what's important now, right? I mean, it would be horrible if we were all in these like age cohorts never being able to talk across ages, right? We wouldn't know what was going on because they grew they grew up with the computers and so they've had a different access to The abundance of information, right the whole way and just and all every sort of generation has a different experiences They're different lives and by listening to them, you know, we get enriched and they by listening to us Totally. Yeah, totally. It's that um the intergenerational wisdom dissemination and and integration Wisdom man. I'm part of this big project called the evolution of wisdom working philosophers, theologians, humanists, anthropologists, biologists It's a this whole notion that there is something out there that we can think of as wisdom The capacity to discern and do do right in the world as best you can Yeah, it's a really cool concept And I wouldn't even have thought about it given my training until I was interacting with philosophers and theologians and Literary folk they push me to think well, you know Can we think about this in a way that makes sense outside of just biology or outside of just an ethnographic context? Yeah, and and the hundred billion people that built civilization They would want us to retain some sort of an essence the essentials of wisdom that that can be passed on I can't I mean I could be totally wrong But this is what I believe that you know a couple million years ago are deep ancestors, right? And in eastern Africa or maybe even southern Africa We're we're developing this incredible capacity to see a stone and in that stone to see something else to see a tool to see a change And reshaping that recreating that and sharing that not just individually, right? But sharing that with the young and the old and working together to sort of craft something this kind of creativity and collaboration And I would like to think that we have inherited it down all that time We are constantly doing it We're working with iPhones now instead of stone tools, but it's the same capacity this this this I this capacity to imagine To create to collaborate what I think being human is is to look at the world See what's around us see what is Imagine alternative possibilities and to get together as a group and try to make those things reality Yeah, that's so well said man. That's so well said. Yeah, but this is anthropology That's so right anthropology offers this insight because it forces you not to just say well It's this reason or it's that reason or single cause it's all about this complex mass And that's what turns out the public off to anthropology because you know anthropologists are famous for saying oh, it's complicated But it's complicated doesn't mean we can't talk about it. We can't know about it We can't learn it We just have to figure out how to best convey that complexity In its wondrous, you know reality and I think you just did the it did it right there with the Contrast you gave a contrast something that's super relatable today of using an iPhone and building apps and collaborating on that And then using a stone tool seeing a rock and making it into a stone tool that can be used for that that that is So I I've they're connected man And I and I kind of and I kind of did a similar thing where I Was very recently writing about just what it would have been like to you know Look at the moon and worship the moon and whatnot and then now we have rockets that go to the moon So it's just this yeah But we haven't lost that on wonder right so I was flying in last night from boston late night right you like went and Anyways, I came back so I'm flying in doing horrible things for the planet by flying too much But that's a whole another thing So I'm flying in and I'm sitting on the aisle seat But the windows open and the airplane is about to land here in San Francisco and it banks And and I see this slip like a half moon Shining brilliant, but a little bit the smoke is making a little bit red So not quite a blood moon But you know just sort of that look and I look at that and in that moment I shared everything across millennia of that wonder for the moon even though we've sent people there and landed there It doesn't in any way shape or form change that awe and wonder and I think that's that's the ticket And how do we get? Is it important to get seven and a half billion people to when they look at the moon to get them to be More awe and have more wonder is to have that sense of they all have that capacity They have the capacity we beat it out of them as they grow up You know we we've we've taken this incredible what I call the creative spark this incredible capacity for creativity and imagination and humanity And many societies ours in particular tries to grind that out of people to become functional become practical Right we can do great things and still have on wonder We can be playful and imaginary and creative and still produce on a regular basis I think we have to be very careful every human alive has the capacity for on wonder And yet most humans because of inequality because of political oppression because of other Contacts aren't able to even find the time to do it whereas others have been had it trained out of themselves And that's that's what scares me Let's this is the newest book My last book I have a new book coming out next year, but the last book was the creative spark how imagination made humans exceptional And and this is kind of what we're what we're talking about right now is that the imagination of the rock the imagination of the phone that The imagination to get to that place has in that collaborative spirit to get there So um, so tell us I mean tell us a bit about that but also some of these other You know, I really also want to talk about the misconceptions human nature race sex And aggression so let's just bust this down clearly right so this concept of human nature is wrong Let us say human natures if you're really interested in that there are many successful ways to be human period We know that the data are in there's just a huge diversity of ways to do the human thing well So let's let's put that aside natures human natures human natures. I think that's the way it is um The problem is many people think that there's some core usually some sort of genetic or a biological core for the complexity of those natures Right and and and obviously everything has a biological facet work organisms or organic creatures, right? But we're never disentangled. Let me give those three examples right race sex and aggression, right? So many people despite what they might say believe that black white asian latino native american what have you are Biologically identifiable clusters. They are not Yeah, right. This is very important race as we use it is not reflective of a biological unit However, it is a very real lived experience when we say race is a social construct. We don't mean it's fake We mean it's totally real. It's just we made it up and and imposed it on the world and because of racism Right what race you happen to embody or be classified in can have deleterious biological social political historical experiential outcomes That's what's really important. None of this is in our nature Right it is in our histories our institutions our cultures Human biological diversity is is is incredible humans vary in skin color and height and shape and by multiple populations around the planet None of that fits into african european asian Those races are not biological units, but they're sure are real things in people's minds And so I think one of the things to push against is to say well, what do we know about race and racism? And those two always have to be together right because race is Prominent because of racism. So that's one example, right? There's no gene for black white or asian, but there's a lot of institutional political and economic infrastructures for black white and asian That's one example way to look at it. Yeah So the sex thing the sex thing, you know, let's take sex and gender, right? You know gender is the lived experience dynamic embodiment In a cultural context of sex and sexuality Sex in the most specific context is about biology So we tend to identify male and female that is in mammals, right females, right? tend to give birth and lactate males don't But if we actually break down the biology we find that it's pretty complicated There's a whole range of things that we associate as male or female. They're not two separate things. It's the same species It's a biological continuum and humans fall along that continuum again There are many successful ways to be human. So when we talk about human natures, right? We can't say there's a male nature and a female nature. Those are nonsensical statements What we can say is different cultures institutions histories and bodies map to this diversity of a way of being gendered and sexed in the world So that's really important because if if we just use that as our starting point Not that male men are from mars and women from venus if we use this sort of diversity of successful ways to be sex and gendered Then people have a lot less problem fitting in in the society because right now We're trying to cram everyone into two little cubby holes And you know what the vast majority of us cannot fit in either of those spaces Not perfectly. Yeah, so that's that's really good. And then you know the thing on aggression I think that's really important in this day and age because we have this whole notion Deep from our sort of western political Philosophical histories of this this demon inside us this horribleness particularly in men, right? This sort of original sin if you will of violence and aggression that humans are demonic males Um, and we tend to think that warfare aggression violence cruelty seem to be at the heart of what it means to be human If you look at the fossil and archaeological record if you look at the other primates We find that no, what is characteristic of primates? What's characteristic of humans? Strong social bonding social complexity the potential for great violence and aggression but the reality that Compassion and working together collaborating is probably at least as if not more common than aggression So peace and war are not opposites They're all part of the same capacity we have for getting together for bonding for making stuff happen Sometimes it has horrible outcomes other times it doesn't but there's no naturalness to a Super aggressor if that was the case we wouldn't be here, you know, yeah two million years ago We were small naked bangless hornless clawless critters right with some rocks and some sticks and all of these giant Predators out there and all these challenges. Yeah, what do we have? We had each other That's actually really well. Yeah, I think that's really evident in human bodies and in human biologies and the human paleo-anthropological and archaeological record That doesn't mean that we didn't run around hitting each other in the head too Yeah, but that's just not our go-to right Aggression is not the human nature Whoa the the that was that was really Profound at the end of when you said that when we were just so naked and raw in our in our In our nascent stages of being human that we were That we had each other that that was really I was really profound. I I want to see if I can If I can give us let's see if I if I got this right so with so with race there is A we're all human We're all one race human race, right human race Looking from the moon. We're all human race and then biologically biologically, right and then the And then the the It's become a We we made the societal we said societal differences historical political social structures We're going to divide this cluster here this cluster here this cluster here and we're going to call them things They're real things, right? There's divisions are real in the sense that they're created. They have history. They have institutions. They have impacts But they're not biology. Yes. They're not some evolutionary trajectory We didn't have three groups of humans branching off with different colors or bodies or whatever So race is real, but it's not biology And then there is now to move on to to To gender sort of sex sex to move on to sex then there is a Kind of it's not a it's not a specie split But then there's a male and a female that make it so that you can have appropriation and a child Yeah, I mean there's there's biology of reproduction biology of reproduction But then there's a continuum of waste to express being human these human natures, right, right? And so yeah, okay, and so the what we would call like where do you draw the line between male and female? Right biologically speaking it's arbitrary, right? It's like drawing line between Europe and Asia We we don't have a line. We just say well, that's these mountains, right? These are Europeans. These are Asians. That doesn't and then we say well, this is masculine or this is feminine We make up those decisions. Yeah. Yeah, the human spreads across the whole place and then there are certain things like ocean the big five personality And so you can make approximate assessments of of psychometrics and whatnot Totally and so and then in there, you know, like what's classified as feminine in one society might not be classified Holy as feminine in another and what's interesting what's classified feminine as masculine may not map to the sex body That's right, right? They may be, you know, the sex body might move around between all of those gendered concepts Because now you see a whole movement for males to be more vulnerable Women want to take on more work or career roles in that sense and and they always did, right? I mean that the thing is is that gender roles are fluid and they're historically variable, right? So the way we are right now It's not necessarily the way that we were in the past nor will it be in the future But it is the way we are right now And so we got to deal with that and sort of think about what does that mean? What it does mean is that we're malleable We're open to change and and I and I am always very interested in what the next Evolutions of civilization are and if humans because I do think there is something to do with this The way that we use technology and how that's affecting our brains and where that's taking us And then also to have the singularity to transhumanism Merging with AI all that kind of stuff So there is going to be this next evolution and then just the way that you know Even with neurodiversity the way that some children are being born into not wanting to have Social engagements, but wanting to just go really deep into learning about something And so if that's the case Who are we to pull people away from that thing and push them towards other things and Neurodiversity is actually that's one of the new frontiers, right? Yeah, when we get now that we're realizing oops wait, there is no normal There's just a whole range of being human And understanding that is actually going to be critical for educational policy Right for for what our future societies look like Um, there's a whole bunch of other diversity that that that we already know about that We still have trouble dealing with man neurodiversities can be the heart It's going to be really hard for people to deal with yeah And then that then the then the last point they made about aggression was was quite interesting that that I really enjoyed thinking about just the cooperation That we've had over time to to build what we have and cooperation doesn't mean lack of aggression, right? Like who who who wins the battle right the army that's most aggressive or the opera army that cooperates best The army that cooperates best the army that is strongly bonded Right and so like the sparta Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah So that I mean that's what's actually really important people try to do Peace and violence as opposites. They're not They're just humans do cooperation really really well So when we do it for really violent cruel things we do it better than anything else But we have the capacity to do that at the same time We have the capacity for incredible peace for incredible Compassion and that is just as if not more common in our histories Than the violence Part of our capacity, you know, so stop Saying that they're opposites And talk about them as capacities and what do we do with capacities? We modify them. We exploit them. We engage with them. Let's think seriously about this stuff What's the lie about monogamy? So, I mean here's the big problem. Uh, monogamy is a particular Historical concept about marriage practice, right? So monogamy in the in the reproductive biology is that One part two partners stay together for one mating season or longer exclusively. It's actually very rare in in a mating season Yeah, well even a mating season, right? So many many organisms don't do that, right? Most organisms are Polygamous in the sense they move around and have multiple mating partners, right? So do humans we have social structural cultural historical norms and expectations about Reproductive relationships and we've codified those in marriage contracts or different kinds of things And so monogamy as a political philosophical orientation has got all mixed up with the biology and separate those two There's no, um putting there's no rings on on chimps. There's no like no, but there's these incredible relationships between individuals Sometimes they're called social bonds. Do they have a lifelong? Well, many do sometimes they have sex sometimes they don't so that's the thing is when we think about pair bonds Bonds between two individuals that are very very strong. Those can go for a lifetime, but they might have nothing to do with reproduction Yeah, they might be about all sorts of other stuff. That's right. And it's the same for humans And we could have you know, two humans could be very very tightly Bonded in a reproductive context, but it doesn't mean they don't find interest in having sex with other So that that conflation with sex reproduction social bonding, you know, those are actually all different things They all come together in certain contexts But if we try to pretend that they're all the same and like if everyone is spending their whole life trying to find their You know, uh soulmate You know, that's a problem find Soul partners find social partners find bonds Hang out and make connections and not and not always will those bonds be sexual and Yeah, exactly. Sometimes they'll be for a year. Sometimes they'll be for seven years or whatever, right? But that that weird expectation that like oh boom, you know Find one and done. That's a weird concept. Not that it doesn't happen a lot. Yes. Yes But it works for certain people But it is not we can't think again back to the human nature, right? What do humans do? We're messy We're complicated and we're social get over it. Yeah Wow, this has been so enlightening Awesome, and I guess just to wrap it up. I'd love to Um hear some of your um your synthesis about like what you see as the current state of humanity and where we're going Hey I mean, so my my the two things one is general humanity, right our species homo sapiens sapiens, right? I I love humans. I I'm incredibly optimistic about human potential and human capacity Everything I know about human biology about our deep history about our recent history and about our present Inspires me to see what humans can do, right for good and for worse So I'm optimistic about humanity what I'm not optimistic about is our contemporary political Economic and social landscapes. I think there's a degree of cruelty and a degree of inequality that is just unsustainable And so I'm really worried about the immediate future because of inequality because of racism because of sexism and because of a kind of institutional bias that Cru rips people apart And and while humans have great potential fighting against these inequalities and injustices is pushing us to our limit So I'm worried about that and what would be a solution that you Well, we've got to ramp down and if we're never going to get rid of any inequality That's always here to stay now given our systems in our histories, but we can ramp it down Um education. Oh and I and I and I thought I I've I've started proposing this on the show now that Here's the top scs in the world. There's the lowest scs in the world It's just that um if everybody can move up at the same time and then you just bring the lowest scs up closer Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I mean what you do is shave a little bit off like, you know, you could anyways That's a whole economic argument. Yes reducing inequality. I think that's critical But also education is a great way to do that. So let's reinvest in our schools Let's make teaching matter. Let's make learning matter. Let's really really care about kids I think that's uh right now. I get the impression that most people don't they don't care about kids in the Environment they don't care about kids in school. They don't care about kids in health. Not really If we cared more about kids We'd probably get a little bit further along the route road to making the world better and reducing inequality Yeah, and we were mentioning that earlier in the conversation as well Just as deep care for augmenting the perception of children to understand like the contrast that you were making Before about where society was and where we are now that we had the stone and we made it into tools and now we have Technology like computers and I make that into tools with the apps and the things that we use them for But it's all social. It's all creative and it's how we use it, right? I mean we could use that stone tool to Knock someone over the head or we could use it to work together To build more stone tools to teach others and to go skin a critter or dig up a root or something like that We have that choice. Yes. Yes. This has been so fascinating. Um, I'm I'm deeply grateful that you joined us. I always love having this opportunity to chat. Thank you. Thank you Thanks for coming on the show. I've hugely appreciated my pleasure. Appreciate it Um, please check out the links in the bio for triple a and for augustine's work Um, also do give us your comments. We'd love to hear from you about the episode what you all thought Uh, go and manifest your dreams in the world. Go and build the future everyone. Thanks much love and we'll see you soon by Wow, that was so fun This is a great concept. We would grow a fun interview man. I'm glad you had a good time