This View of Life

This View of Life takes a deep dive with the best and brightest thinkers on anything and everything from an evolutionary perspective. Hosted by David Sloan Wilson.

Addressing the Wicked Problem of Housing Insecurity in Binghamton New York with Rebecca Rathmell 04/01/2025

Hunter-Gatherer Societies, Human Origins, and Modern Democracies with Vivek Venkataraman (Part 2) 04/01/2025

Hunter-Gatherer Societies, Human Origins, and Modern Democracies with Vivek Venkataraman (Part 1) 04/01/2025

Hunter-Gatherer Societies, Human Origins, and Modern Democracies with Vivek Venkataraman (Part 1) Originally published on January 8, 2025. Hunter-gatherer societies are fascinating in their own right and--with appropriate caution--a major source of insight about our ancestral past, stretching back to our origin as a species. Remarkably, hunter-gatherer societies also have much to teach us about modern Democratic governance. Vivek Venkataraman is an idea guide to this subject, with a background in philosophy, primatology, and human evolutionary biology, along with direct experience living with and researching indigenous people in Malaysia. Check out the resources, articles, and more mentioned in this conversation! 4:21 A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons By Robert M. Sapolsky ·2007 12:37 The Goodness Paradox The Strange Relationship Between Virtue and Violence in Human Evolution By Richard Wrangham · 2019 14:30 Hierarchy in the Forest The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior By Christopher BOEHM · 2009 14:35 and 22:41 Moral Origins The Evolution of Virtue, Altruism, and Shame By Christopher Boehm · 2012 17:52 A Story of Us A New Look at Human Evolution By Lesley Newson, Peter J. Richerson · 2021 22:51 Morality from an Evolutionary Perspective with Simon Blackburn: https://www.prosocial.world/posts/morality-from-an-evolutionary-perspective-with-simon-blackburn 29:06 and 40:56 Man the Hunter Symposium 33:31 Eating Christmas in the Kalahari Richard Borshay Lee 37:23 Co-Residence Patterns in Hunter-Gatherer Societies Show Unique Human Social Structure Kim R. Hill , et al. 44:43 Variability in the organization and size of hunter-gatherer groups: Foragers do not live in small-scale societies 46:28 The Evolution of Subjective Commitment to Groups: A Tribal Instincts Hypothesis Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd, 2011 48:23 Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model Manvir Singh and Luke Glowacki, 2022 50:20 The Dawn of Everything A New History of Humanity By David Graeber, David Wengrow · 2021 57:19 Society Against the State: Essays in Political Anthropology by Pierre Clastres, 1987 /episode/index/show/thisviewoflife/id/35958165

Barry-Wehmiller’s Bold Experiment in Prosocial Cultural Evolution 04/01/2025

Assessing the Complexity/Evolution Paradigm for Economics with Eric Beinhocker 04/01/2025

Evolving Prosocial Cities, with Jonathan Rose 04/01/2025

Conscious Capitalism Viewed Through The Lens of a New Paradigm with Bob Chapman & Raj Sisodia 04/01/2025

A Theory of Everyone as a New Paradigm with Michael Muthukrishna and David Sloan Wilson 04/01/2025

Updating Darwin and Tocqueville on Self Interest, Rightly Understood, with Robert Putnam 04/01/2025

Wicked Problems and How To Solve Them with Guru Madhavan 04/01/2025

Depolarizing Economic Theory and Practice with Paul Dragos Aligica 04/01/2025

Announcing a New Paradigm for Economics and Beyond with Dennis Snower and David Sloan Wilson 08/26/2024

Announcing a New Paradigm for Economics and Beyond with Dennis Snower and David Sloan Wilson Is it time to fundamentally rethink economics - its theoretical foundations, activities and processes; its purpose and goals? How should we reimagine and redesign our economic models to better reflect and serve human needs and wants, and the flourishing of all life on our one planet? ‍‍ It is often said that the world faces challenges that are complex and systemic. But in fact, the world is a complex, interconnected “system of systems”. These complexities and interconnectivities amplify the global challenges facing us, whether economic, social or environmental. They also mean that a deep understanding of the behaviour of these systems is critical to solving these problems for the long-term. ‍ Leading evolutionary theorist David Sloan Wilson and influential economist Dennis Snower have long advocated for an improved understanding of economics as a complex system. ‍ Across a recent series of major articles, they argue for a paradigm shift away from the orthodox, neoclassical model of economics, which focuses on individual challenges to be tackled through decisions by individual decision-makers and views ‘externalities’ as a phenomenon to be ‘corrected’ through government intervention, in favour of a new , based on insights from evolutionary science. This is a model that takes proper account of the complexity of our social natures and relations, and the centrality of collective challenges in our lives – challenges that can only be effectively tackled through a carefully orchestrated, context-specific combination of social, political and institutional mechanisms. ‍ Though such a paradigm shift has long proved elusive, Snower and Sloan Wilson argue that is an achievable goal, and one that’s more necessary now than ever before, at a time of economic and ecological crisis, when new narratives and new modes of cooperation will be critical to building successful multilateral alliances for innovation and change. /episode/index/show/thisviewoflife/id/32741032

Anti-Trust From a Multilevel Evolutionary Perspective with Denise Hearn 03/15/2023

Anti-Trust From a Multilevel Evolutionary Perspective with Denise Hearn Increasingly, policymakers, investors, and advocates recognize that the neoliberal theory of economic organization – laissez faire – is a failed experiment. However, certain areas of law – particularly antitrust law are still beholden to false econometric notions about how markets operate, which influences legal interpretation, case precedent, and ongoing debates about reviving antitrust’s role in the political economy. Can Multilevel Cultural Evolution provide a new paradigm for anti-trust law, along with the rest of economics? Denise Hearn is a writer, advisor, and project catalyzer who works with investors, policymakers, and organizations who want to use their power to support a living and equitable future. Hearn serves as a Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project and co-lead of the Access to Markets initiative. Hearn also serves as Board Chair of The Predistribution Initiative which aims to improve investment structures and practices to address systemic risks like inequality, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Denise co-authored The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition with Jonathan Tepper — named one of the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2018. Her writing has been featured in publications such as The Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Responsible Investor, and The Washington Post. Hearn currently authors the Embodied Economics newsletter. David Sloan Wilson is one of the foremost evolutionary thinkers and gifted communicators about evolution to the general public. He is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology Emeritus at Binghamton University and President of the nonprofit organization Prosocial World, whose mission is "To consciously evolve a world that works for all." His most recent books are This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution, Prosocial: Using Evolutionary Science to Build Productive, Equitable, and Collaborative Groups (with Paul Atkins and Steven C. Hayes), and his first novel, Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III. /episode/index/show/thisviewoflife/id/26243580