DividedQuantum said:

Imho, there is a perfectly sound reason why we are so awful at conducting civilization: we did not evolve to do it.

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FranniePilgrim said:

Perhaps our true nature is simply what we are now.

I tend to think we are all natural at this moment.

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RJ Tubs 202 said:

I've seen wildly different numbers, but some estimates are 60-80% of early human societies were polygamous. (a recent example, the Iroquois lived in large family units based on polyamorous relationships, and men and women lived in general equality.) I am a functionalist and believe everything exists for a reason, and patriarchy and the nuclear family certainly emerged and served an adaptive functional role at some point (likely catalyzed by the emergence of civilization?) and maybe, all things considered, this might be the best we can do in modern society. The underlying supposed evolutionary motivation for heterosexual pairing is that a female exchanges her sexual services for access to resources and protection from the male. I wonder how women feel about that.

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DividedQuantum said:

......It is made possible by increased brain size, yes, but that is not really an explanation. I used the word "quest" purely in an ideological sense. I agree that it's not in any way objectively progressive. The strangest thing about our civilization is its youth -- it's only ten thousand years old, and in that comparatively brief time has swallowed and enslaved the entire world. Homo sapiens has been anatomically modern for 200-300,000 years. Identical biologically, with the only differences being cultural -- culture being the shared mental contents of a particular group. So... why did it take so long? There is no answer. One could say that it had a certain likelihood to happen, so sooner or later it did. But that doesn't explain why it took 97% of our existence to pass before we engaged in it. So there's some piece missing as to how civilizations can form and last for thousands of years, if it virtually never happens. It's a mystery.

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DividedQuantum said:

....but it doesn't say anything about why they form, ....
extremely few civilizations have formed on this planet.
....how are they possible at all? What could make people want to go from working two or three hours a day to sixteen or eighteen hours a day? It makes perfect sense why civilizations are so rare.

....in the entire human experience, there is only one culture that has come to swallow the planet. Ours, born in Mesopotamia in 8000 BC
..... The Chinese, Maya, Aztec, Inca, the Ainu of Japan, the Calusa of Florida -- these were all hierarchical, farming, sedentary societies that never entered the race to conquer the world. And the Chinese, ....head start of about 2,500 years over the European conquistadors, and never saw the need.
I find that fascinating.
..... But it's interesting to talk about, for sure.

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laughingdog said:

As to why civilization happens, probably again random factors, leading to particularly plentiful or surplus food at some points and places, lead to sedentism to take advantage of the situation and probably once that happens, without anyone being particularly conscious of what is happening, the resulting social factors, cement the change in place.

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DividedQuantum said:

Jsb, you raise a very interesting topic. As a matter of fact, hunter-gatherers were perfectly aware that food surpluses were contrary to and would damage their entire economy. Efforts were made never to accumulate surpluses. Indeed, in most tribes, there was a strong cultural ethos to avoid accumulation of any kind. I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that hunter-gatherers were people, who may very well have understood perfectly what surpluses would lead to. So there are hidden complexities.

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