Evolvify – evolutionary theory and hunter-gatherer anthropology applied to the human animal

Hunter-gatherer minds and bodies navigating the techno-spectacle.

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Smashing Anthropology into Evolutionary Psychology and Paleo Logic for Peak Human Animality.

Caves: DEBUNKED. Solitary: DEBUNKED. Nasty: DEBUNKED. Brutish: DEBUNKED. Short: DEBUNKED.

THE EVOLVIFY ANTHROPOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY SMASHUP PROJECT

EVOLVIFY started with a focus on applying evolutionary psychology to our lives for increased psychosocial flourishing, and evolutionary biology for increased physical well-being. Shortly into that journey it became clear that some of the pop-culture iterations of evolutionary psychology were beholden to a statist agenda that attempts to normalize control and domination. Our ancestors actively thwarted such status quo reinforcing moves. Market economic ideology and hierarchical sociopolitical structures are contrary to our lives as individuals. A detour is in order.

Some EVOLVIFIED tendencies.

Benign View of Nature

“Individuals view the relationship between humans and nature in much the same way that they view relationships between humans. Both involve the sharing of resources and affection.“

Relational Autonomy

“…individuals develop a unique view of the relation between self and other. It is a view that differs from that in both individualist and collectivist societies. Like those in individualist societies, members of immediate-return societies put a premium on autonomy. Their autonomy, however, does not contrast the individual with the society as it does in individualist cultures. Rather, immediate-return autonomy grows out of repeated, mutually trusting social interactions.”

Intentionally Egalitarian

“…differences in resources rarely occur in immediate-return societies. When differences in resources do occur (rarely), active steps are taken to eliminate them. For example, some individuals are routinely better hunters than others…. These successful hunters, however, are not allowed to translate their superior hunting skills into domination over others. The group accomplishes this through a variety of leveling mechanisms.”

Present-Oriented

“…individuals usually obtain a relatively immediate yield for their labor and use this yield with minimal delay. They know within a few hours, for example, if their hunt has been successful. If it has been, they can return to the camp to eat, and if it has not, they have time to search for an alternative food source. This relatively immediate feedback allows members of immediate-return societies to maintain an extreme focus on the present.”

Food is more than grocery stores and gardens. Do you really believe humans are the only species in 3 billion years to need money? Life is elsewhere.

Sex

In the monocultural shift from engagement to control, and the resultant instantiation of property rights, humans got real weird about sex.

Sometimes being a mammal is fun. And that’s okay.

Food

Wild food has a way of connecting humans to a degree of vitality that is difficult to achieve in the aisles of the grocery store or caged animals.

Forks optional. Knives required.

Community

Humans are social primates. Lone wolves in the wild are generally sick, injured or looking for other wolves to hang out with. You’re not a canine anyway. And our “canine” teeth shrunk in the last few million years to reinforce the point.

Play

Inspired by the genius paper by Peter Gray, “Play as a Foundataion for Hunter-Gatherer Social Existence”, let us reintroduce humor and play as mechanism for social stability, rather than the dominance fallacies of Hobbesian brainwashing.