This Anthro Life

The episode emphasizes how understanding our innate human drives and dispositions is critical, as awareness allows us to work with them constructively. In particular, humans have a "tribe drive" - an instinct to cooperate and identify with groups, even strangers. Figuring out the signals that activate this drive is an important mission. David Samson talks about the concept of tribalism and the role it plays in human behavior. He discusses the idea of evolutionary mismatch, where humans are evolved for a different environment than the one they currently live in. This episode explains that tribes are intersubjective belief networks that signal coalitionary alliances to bootstrap trust among strangers. Moreover, it explores the power of tribal signals, such as symbols, language, music, and ideology, in creating a sense of belonging and identity. Additionally, the episode emphasizes the importance of being conscious of our identity stack and the proportion of abstract tribes (e.g., political tribes) versus face-t