Survival of the Fittest: Is Our DNA a Feature or a Bug?
How our deep-seated survival instincts put our species at risk of not adapting
It starts with evolution.
Innate desire to compete with others is the basis for the evolution of our species. Our genetic code is hard-wired to propagate itself into the next round — and will do whatever it takes to advance, like a c-list celebrity on a reality TV gameshow.
Those with the fittest code systematically outlast those with comparatively less-hardy strands, and across time and large numbers of permutations, the curve of evolution bends. Charles Darwin labeled this marketplace competition “natural selection” — and look no further than the Darwin Awards for Exhibit A of how the gene pool cleanses itself.
For 50,000 years, this code of competition has served homo sapiens incredibly well and has secured the survival of our species.
But will the essence of evolution itself prevent us from evolving further?
To date, winners of the competition have flourished, building advantages for their offspring as they go. With enhanced health and wealth, successful breeders’ instincts have compounded positions of strength by investing time and energy to secure their future and their heirs down the line.
The double-helix likes it when its host is on top. It’s good to be king. In the harsh world of survival of the fittest, it’s eat or be eaten. The intrinsic drive to compete has directly and indirectly contributed to tens of thousands of years of systemic oppression — tied to a reward mechanism that has encouraged elevating one’s self, typically at the expense of others. Racism. Abuse. Oppression. Slavery. War. Mankind’s most ruthless atrocities are deeply rooted in a core desire to propagate ones own genes over another.
Through it all, the human species has not just objectively survived, but thrived. Survival is no longer in doubt. What is now in doubt is the longer-term ability of humankind to elevate our society and sustain for the longer haul.
Common prosperity
An American living in a vibrant capitalistic social democracy of the Netherlands, I offer an aside.
Dutch early society bonded around their “polder model” — a culture of decision-making that is optimized for the collective, whose roots origin from the pragmatic social water management solutions require to thrive in a community below sea-level. One simply could not reclaim land on their own. Fighting against the sea required a communal approach, to the benefit of every individual. Those early established and long-tested values are the bedrock of a social democracy that is pro-business, capitalistic, with healthy tax revenues that fund deep social safety nets and ensure a stable foundation for society.
Globally today, in almost every country, social conflict is rampant as populist leaders gain strength by asserting “us versus them” and advocating for insiders at the expense of outsiders. These movements have gained popularity as people strive to protect what they have, pitting self-interest and the rights and responsibilities of the individual against broader interests of the full society.
Last week (May 2, 2022) Kara Swisher dropped an interview on her New York Times Opinion podcast Sway with billionaire hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio, who has recently authored The Changing World Order. Dalio’s book highlighs the historical patterns of social unrest and spotlights how runaway income disparity has historically repeatedly made wealthy societies susceptible to revolution.
Dalio builds the case for “common prosperity” as an antidote.
On Swisher’s podcast, Dalio asserts “The United States can use a lot more common prosperity.” He elaborates, “I believe that common prosperity is essential for making the system work the best, because it draws on the largest number of people. And if you don’t have it, you’re much more exposed to a revolution. So, I think that one of the problems of our system is that it’s not dealing with, let’s call it, broad-based prosperity.”
This prompts Swisher to quip, “Right. I always say to wealthy people, I said, you’re either going to fix the system of inequality or you’re going to armor plate your Tesla. You pick which one you’d rather do.”
And yet, the notion of common prosperity as a catalyst to elevate society, both the poor and the wealthiest, goes against the hardwiring of the human condition. Our DNA twists in agony in the face of anything that might tilt the scale toward the less “fit” and give others an evolutionary edge of any kind.
Dalio goes on to say “In doing my book, I found what are the biggest empires and how did they rise and fall. They all put being rich and powerful as the number one objective. If I measure what are the happiest places, there’s very little correlation between that. On competitiveness, it’s basic. Do you earn more than you spend, because you educate your people well? Do you behave well with each other? In other words, are you by and large in a competitive environment, but rowing in the same direction, so that you’re productive and that it’s broad-based prosperity? That is the definition of being strong. That’s competitiveness.”
There. He said it. One of the world’s most successful hedge fund managers suggests that competitiveness is about collective health and strength, not individual.
Here’s where we run up against the wall. Our genome simply isn’t wired this way. What was once considered a feature in our individualistic survivalist-based source code, in a more collective context now starts to look like a bug.
Next 50,000 years: “sustainance” over sustenance
It’s hard not to argue that the first 50,000 years of homo sapiens has been a monumental success story. Mission Accomplished. We devolved from nomadic foragers to approaching interplanetary colonization in just 2,000 generations. It’s been an insane run.
We survived.
And now that single generational survival is less in the balance, it’s time to think about the next 50,000 years — less sustenance, more sustainance. Yes, I know that’s a made up word. Still, you get the point. Our incredibly effective DNA, hard coded for near-term individualism, are powerful headwinds.
Common prosperity appears to be a mandatory condition to get to the next level. We’ll have to fight and overcome our individualistic instincts toward priorities that are much more collective, and have longer term time horizons. Like the polder model, collective cooperation ultimately benefits the entire group. But, like the polder model, common prosperity requires everyone to play, even at the expense and sacrifice of the “fittest” individuals.
On Sway, as Swisher presses Dalio for solutions, here he points out how politics complicates the picture.
He says, “A smart redistribution of resources that makes this a much more common prosperity, is something that’s required. Now, it has to be done where you increase the size of the pie and divide it well. And I think that those on the right overemphasize increasing the size of the pie and don’t pay enough attention on how to divide it well. And those on the left pay more attention to dividing it well than thinking about how to increase the size of the pie.”
Here I disagree and I see the reverse.
I see the right as having a winner-take-all approach to life. The pie, mostly fixed in size, requires one to fight for ones fair share. It is a zero-sum game: if you get more, I get less. Eat, or be eaten. The DNA strands are all in.
Meanwhile, I view the left as embracing a no person left behind mantra. A rising tide raises all boats. When the less fortunate win, we all win and do better. Capitalism with safety nets.
“Socialism!” come the predictable complaints from conservative Americans who would be gobsmacked if they realized their beloved NFL was socialist. “Entitlements make individuals lazy and makes our country uncompetitive,” they cry.
No.
Safety nets don’t inherently make people lazy. Safety nets offer security to swing for the fences, like a kid graduating from college unsaddled with debt. Does a safety net make a Cirque du Soliel acrobat lazy? No, it inspires her to try the quadruple flip after nailing the triple. In acrobatics and in life, it’s a lot easier to take risk and go for it when the downside of a single error isn’t game over.
I think Dalio has this part backwards unless my lefty bias is playing tricks on me. The right just wants a bigger piece of their own, while the left wants to make sure everyone at least gets a small one.
Will our individual orientation slam us into the wall?
Maybe we have hidden genetic code which will help us miraculously recognize that our best shot of making it to the next round is to recalculate probabilities and adapt accordingly. For example, will we recognize the climate crisis for what it is — disaster looming just beyond tomorrow — and inspire near-term individual sacrifices for the long-term benefit of the future of our species.
But, can we get out of sustenance mode and into sustainance mode?
A dark thought occurred to me. Maybe the hard wiring of our individualistic survival instinct is the long perplexing answer to the Fermi Paradox: if there are so many habitable planets within the trillions of stars in the universe, where the hell is everybody? The dark thought is that perhaps every intelligent life form reaches a similar wall — once the technical ability to destroy a society / species / planet gets distributed widely enough amongst a large enough number of individuals, inevitably all it takes is a lone Bond villain to throw their toys out of the crib and end it all for the rest.
Can we adapt?
Over time, I’ve concluded that the answer to almost every deep meaningful question in life can be answered by one of the three solutions: love is the answer, stay in the moment, play the long game.
This one feels like play the long game. If we could trick our genetic code to adapt from optimizing for making the next one round to optimizing for maximizing the odds of making it 100 rounds, that would be a game changer. But like unconscious bias, we can’t fix our code — we can only be aware of it, and then overcome our own instincts with intentional adjustments and adaptation.
Adaptation, is, after all, Darwin’s key thesis to successful evolution. We must very soon find a global polder model. Our sustainance may depend on it.
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