Are humans capable to live cooperatively?

“Law is made by the winner to preserve victory over the loser.”

Toba Beta

It is worth exploring why most people will say today that such a world is utterly impossible. People assume that humans are lazy and egoistic by nature and that only constant pressure from competition, laws and rules can make them perform.

Is this really true?

There are (or were) societies on this planet which lived together in a highly cooperative way. It is for instance known that on many islands of the south pacific people are very social and conflicts with other islands rare. The south sea is maybe what comes to our mind if we try to imagine a paradise on earth. This not only due to the beauty of nature but also from early reports of adventurers who described the generosity of the islands inhabitants. Why this difference to the highly competitive mainland cultures? If we look closer at the historical living conditions on these islands, we understand why this might be the case. In the past, the population was regulated by nature: many men were lost every year while fishing (it was easy to get blown away from the island by unfavorable winds or because of navigation errors). Therefore the islands were not overpopulated (today most are). It also did not make sense to accumulate a lot of wealth in the form of things and buildings, because the islands were hit by hurricanes every few years which destroyed or blew away most of the infrastructure on the island (and led to many more lost lives). This maybe limited wealth differences and consequently envy. We could say people were mostly busy fighting together against nature instead of fighting each other. Infrastructure was primitive, because people did not see a reason to invest much energy into it, if everything material was lost at regular intervals anyway.

This story should make us ask another question: could it be that similar conditions were much more common in our more distant past? We know that during the well described last 3000 years of our history, people were mostly busy slaughtering each other. But it is well possible that for a long time before the cooperative part of our behavior played a much more important role. For instance because the population density was still much lower and different groups came less often into contact (and therefore conflict) with each other. In this times groups were formed rather to hunt and to defend against wild animals than to fight other groups. Anyway it seems reasonable to assume that human beings, due to their long history with varying living conditions, are capable to live in a number of different social modes. Our behavioral patterns might offer solutions for many different living conditions. And among them are probably also predominantly cooperative modes as seen in the south pacific.

It seems that the living conditions determine whether a competitive or a cooperative culture evolves.

Another thing which makes an estranged group cooperate is the appearance of an external enemy (for instance in the form of another group). This is an effect which is often exploited by politicians who start wars with other countries to distract from internal problems. Another example is camaraderie between soldiers in a war. The extreme external threat leads to a very strong bond between the soldiers and intense cooperation. If the world would be attacked tomorrow by an alien species from another planet, humankind would switch into a fully cooperative mode immediately. Of course we don’t want to hope for this to happen.

We can now try to summarize the environmental conditions under which groups develop a cooperative culture:

  1. A mechanism which keeps the population density low (e.g. harsh natural environment like frequent storms, hard winters etc., frequent diseases). A high population density leads to social stress in a group and between groups. If resources are available in sufficient quantities, nobody wants to risk a conflict. But the less „bones“ there are for the ten „dogs“, the harder they will fight over them.
  2. An external common enemy or threat (could be other groups, dangerous animals or again harsh natural conditions). We have already seen that forming a group is an excellent strategy to compete with other groups. We have also seen that within the group people act mostly cooperatively to maintain its stability.
  3. Limited possibilities for people to accumulate individual wealth (possessions or money).Individual wealth is an important means to gain an advantage over other members of your group (otherwise it could be easily shared with everybody). It also reduces an individuals need for support from the other group members, as the possessions make it easier to survive without their help. It is therefore clearly competitive in nature.Therefore the limited availability of possibilities to accumulate individual wealth will probably support cooperative behavior in the group.

Is it possible to trigger a transition to a cooperative culture on a global scale by creating such conditions artificially?

Let‘s again look at the different factors individually:

  1. All these things are not available anymore (fortunately).
  2. Not available. We don’t want groups to have enemies anymore and we also don’t want them to be threatened. But it is an important reason why there is cooperative behavior inside groups today.
  3. Not available.It has become easier to produce and accumulate wealth than ever before, and I see no way to change this.

It becomes clear now why we don’t have cooperative cultures in most countries today: the conditions simply do not support the development of this kind of behavior.

This means, our only chance is a change in culture which is not driven by environmental conditions. This means we have to want the change. All or most of us at some point in time.

Now let’s study the cooperative culture which can evolve under such conditions. Maybe we can use some of it to create a global cooperative culture. Which are the cultural values of cooperative societies? And what additional cultural values do we need?

  1. The culture of enjoying to give and help. The early travelers visiting the pacific islands realized quickly that the islanders were very generous. Some visitors lived over long periods of time only from the gifts of the locals without ever giving something back. Now you might think that the islanders were obviously stupid and therefore easy to exploit. But I don’t think the locals felt exploited and they were sure not stupid. The behavior can only be understood when we understand the locals perception of giving: giving and helping were a joy and a privilege which gives status. Therefore people who can never give something to others are considered poor and deserve pity. The local fishermen must have thought something along the following line: „wow, I’m allowed to bring this man joy every day and all I have to do is to catch another fish“.It is also important that help and generosity are not only granted to the members of the own group (like close family members, the „clan“) but also to strangers.
  2. The culture of not tolerating excessive personal possessions. Individual wealth needs a culture which accepts it. I spent some time in the south pacific and I remember an incident where we went back to our boat with many boxes full of food in a public bus (after shopping for a multi week sailing trip). An elderly woman in the bus opened without asking one of the boxes, took out a few boxes of cookies and distributed them among the people in the bus. Then she was smiling at us and the whole bus was happily munching our cookies. I was told that it would be extremely impolite to protest as this behavior was totally OK in the local culture. This means that individual wealth can only exist if it is accepted by the other group members. This is also interesting from the perspective that on many islands the possession of large riches is already limited due to natural conditions (frequent hurricanes). The culture seems to reinforce this further.
  3. Promiscuous behavior is accepted. This has the effect that it is often not so clear who really the father of a child is. Therefore it does not make much sense for men to concentrate their support for mothers only on one woman. They have to distribute their contributions among several women because all of them could be mothers of their children.If men distribute their support between several women, every woman also has several men as sources of support. Then women are not dependent anymore on a single man to support them. They don‘t have to chose a single man with large wealth as partner anymore. Note that in the future it will be very easy to find the father of a child using genetic fingerprinting. Therefore there must be also a culture in place which considers this a taboo. Similarly we could imagine a culture of women raising kids collectively which again decreases their dependence on men. Ideally both men and women raise the kids collectively.
  4. The culture of limited reproduction. People must limit their reproduction rate intentionally (by using birth control).This is not really a typical cultural value of existing cooperative societies, but we can observe it developing in many countries. This culture will serve as the main mechanism to the keep population density at a tolerable level.
  5. The culture of respect and appreciation for other groups and individuals. We cannot inhibit group formation. Groups are formed for many reasons and not only to allow competition with other groups. They are also a result of our individual personalities and the desire to find a home in a group of likeminded people. There is nothing wrong with this (we are not ants or bees which can form a single global group!). Therefore we need new cultural values which inhibit aggression between groups and between individuals within groups.

Could we implement such a culture on a global scale?

  1. This seems possible, but it won’t be easy. The mentioned thought of the fisherman requires a completely different view of how certain inner processes work. We will look at this in detail in the chapter „Our shared subconscious“ (including the following chapters).
  2. It seems reasonable to assume that it is possible to create a culture which tolerates individual possessions only in a very limited way. This point therefore seems to be rather easy to solve. We will not study this in more detail.
  3. We can easily imagine a change in moral which allows women to have many sex partners (and as a result children from different men). Therefore possible. In the future it will be very easy to find the father of a child using genetic fingerprinting. Therefore also a culture to refrain from doing this would be required. We will not study this in more detail.
  4. It is a well known fact that the reproduction rate of humans is decreasing with increasing wealth and education of people (especially the education of women). The fertility rate is in fact, thanks to the availability of birth control, in decline in most parts of the world. Or to use terminology from the first chapter: we have already successfully defeated the male principle (uncontrolled self replication). If we start to share our knowledge with the developing world, the speed of this process will accelerate. So this seems to be a problem which can be solved. We will not study this in more detail.
  5. This again seems possible, but won’t be easy. It requires us to have a fundamentally different view of others. This is only possible if we change the way we see ourselves. We will look at this in detail in the chapter „The 5 essential insights“ (including the following chapters).

This looks good so far!