Center for Evolutionary Psychology

The Darwinian revolution in

the social sciences.

John Tooby & Leda Cosmides

Center for Evolutionary Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara

The ancient debate: Aristotle vs.

Plato
two warring views of human nature
Aristotles view:
There is nothing in the intellect which was
not previously in the senses.
Thomas Aquinas

The mind is a blank slate, written on the by

hand of experience.
John Locke

The modern social sciences are built on

an Aristotlean blank slate foundation.

Aristotlean view: the mind is like a tape

recorder or video recorder
assumes: the mechanisms of recording
(learning) do not impart any content of their
own to the signal that it absorbs
our mental content is therefore wholly
supplied by the senses, especially from
social sources (culture)

claim: basing the social sciences on

the mistaken theory that the mind is
like a blank slate was a fundamental
error that has kept the social sciences
from being as fully successful as the
natural sciences

Platos alternative view: human nature

comes equipped with some mental
content and organization not supplied by
experience
Darwins second breakthrough:
Plato says...that our [innate] ideas" arise
from the preexistence of the soul, are not
derivable from experienceread monkeys for
preexistence.
Darwin's Notebooks
The M Notebook, 1856

Origin of man now proved.-Metaphysics must flourish.-He who understands baboon would do more
toward metaphysics than Locke.
Darwin's Notebooks
The M Notebook, 1856
Translation: The adaptive problems of our
ancestors (understands baboon) selected for
the innate ideas, sentiments, etc. of the human
mind (metaphysics).

Darwinism explains why the mind/brain is

not a blank slate.

mutations that introduced useful instincts

into human nature reproduced more
effectively, and we are descended from them
instincts = evolved neural programs, like
computers application programs (iTunes,
Microsoft Word, FireFox, etc.):
have specialized functions, innate ideas
ambition of evolutionary psychology is to
map the architecture of these programs

What if the human mind is full

of specialized mechanisms
waiting to be discovered?
If human nature is full of
Have
we overlooked
most
content-rich
programs
then
ofthis
human
nature?
requires
radical
changes to the foundations
of the social sciences.

Sahlins
intelligence
Geertz
equipotential
symbol
Boasmodule
general capacity
for Harris
culture
general
learning
capacity
category
formation
generalization

Traditional
Sociocultural
social
science
anthropological
theories of
theories
human nature
Behaviorist theories of human nature operant conditioning
flavor preference

UC reflexes
SIMPLE

Pavlovian conditioning

FUNCTION-GENERAL

FUNCTION-SPECIFIC

COMPLEX

COMPLEX
language acquisition device

social exchange reasoning

ingroup-outgroup circuits
perception
anger system guilt system
sexual jealousy
object
alliance
kin detection
physics
detection
mechanism
aggression
status cue
recognition
friendship psychology
mate selection criteria
mother-infant
attachment
face recognition

short
term
memory
general
learning
capacity?
category
formation
generalization

prepared phobias
flavor preference

UC reflexes
SIMPLE

operant conditioning
Pavlovian conditioning

FUNCTION-GENERAL

FUNCTION-SPECIFIC

theory of
mind

statistical
induction

new Darwinian (evolutionary psychological)

foundations for the social sciences

our minds are full of evolved mental

programs that regularly introduce
evolutionarily shaped content (concepts,
emotions, sentiments, etc.) into human
minds across the planet
these programs generate culture and
social phenomena in interaction with the
social and physical environment
making cultures similar and all human
life recognizably patterned by the same
recurrent themes

maps of evolved programs constitute

building blocks of new, more explanatory
social theories

the social and cultural phenomena that

social scientists study are patterned
expressions of evolved mental programs,
and their interactions
plan of talk:
the social phenomenon of outrages
triggering mass violence is a combination of
the evolved anger program plus programs
for intergroup competition

A brief sketch of the evolved logic of anger.

This work on anger is

being done with our
student:

Aaron Sell
also with Daniel
Sznycer, Andy
Delton, Julian
Lim, Tess
Robertson, Elsa
Ermer

anger is an evolved program = anger is an

instinct

reliably develops
without instruction
in all normal
individuals
in all cultures
it can operate without
us being aware of its
underlying logic

claim about its evolved function: anger is a

program that orchestrates implicit negotiation
for better treatment in conflicts of interest

anger is triggered when someone places too

little weight on your welfare compared to the
weight they place on their own
we call this ratio of weights the welfare
tradeoff ratio (WTR)
for individual i, WTRij = weight i places on
js welfare / weight i places on is own
welfare

the anger expression communicates that you

reject this bid that the act that angers you is
an acceptable way to treat you (i.e., reflects a
sufficiently high WTRthe WTR you are
entitled to),
and it signals that you are opening a bout of
renegotiation (for a higher WTR)

Implicit bargaining theory of anger

each individual has two bargaining tools

threat or actuality of inflicting costs on the other

(aggression)
threat or actuality of withholding or conferring
benefits (downregulating cooperation)

the anger program orchestrates the expression of

these two tools to recalibrate WTR in the other
implicit message: the benefit you get by treating
me poorly is smaller than the lost benefits you will
no longer receive (in a cooperative relationship) or
the harm you will experience; therefore, you will be
better off increasing your WTR toward me

what does the mind feel it is entitled to?: social

power and the prima donna effect

the greater the ability to inflict costs

(formidability), the greater the bargaining power
the greater the ability to confer or withhold
benefits, the greater the bargaining power
stronger men should feel more entitled to better
treatment, anger more easily, prevail more in
conflicts of interest
more attractive women should feel more entitled to
better treatment, anger more easily, prevail more in
conflicts of interest

Prediction: More formidable individuals should have a lower threshold for

anger and aggression.

Results: Correlations between Physical Strength and

Attitudes Related to Anger
Strength
Measure

Proneness
to Anger

History
of Fighting

Fear of Retaliation
Utility of force
Personal

Rumination

Political

Aggregate
Strength

.358
p<.005

.356
p<.005

-.373
p<.005

-.252
p<.05

.022
p>.10

Flexed
Bicep

.458
p<.001

.320
p=.01

-.391
p<.001

-.260
p<.05

.062
p>.10

the logic of anger centers on the issue of how

much weight one individual places on the
welfare of another, compared to the weight he
places on his own welfare (WTR)

not just harm, but harm for what

benefit?
necktie test indicating anger is a
function of WTR, not damage

The role of outrages in the

evolutionary psychology of groups
and intergroup conflict

Talk summary for those, like me, with ADHD:

Events in which one or more members of one group injure the
welfare of members of another group (outrages) are viewed
as proposing an intergroup welfare trade-off ratio (WTR)
precedent that reflects the relative power of the two groups
and so sets expectations for future interactions between
members of the two groups. If the group whose member(s)
have been injured feels stronger and entitled to more
deference than the proposed WTR implies, mutual awareness
of the outrage mobilizes anger: coordinated aggressive action
to reset the intergroup WTR. Because it is normally difficult
to get individuals to set aside competing agendas within
groups, yet group power increases with coordination, outrages
(real or fabricated) become a resource ingroup individuals
strategically deploy to mobilize joint action they (as
individuals) benefit from. Many (perhaps most) major

turning points in history triggered by outrage events.

Japanese demonstrators in Okinawa protest the

presence of U.S. military bases on their island. The rally
was precipitated by the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl,
allegedly by three U.S. servicemen.

males doing what males have commonly done for

perhaps 7 million years (since chimp-hominid split)

Human history and

prehistory heavily shaped by
war & internal coalitions

organisms evolved mechanisms whose

function is to:
1) expand their share of zero-sum reproductive
resources
2) limit their loss of zero-sum reproductive
resources
they can do this through aggression, as
individuals
but they also can do this even better if they
combine together cooperatively, in coalitions
intergroup conflict and competition
war = cooperation within the coalition, and
aggression between coalitions

war is cooperative

if individuals can combine into groups, they

can boost their joint formidability

leading to social dominance of one group over

another
larger or more powerful groups get more
groups struggle for relative status
status of ones own group seen as an intrinsic good
recurrent theme in male minds: predatory ascendant
coalition
ideology varies, but the practice converges on:
power for the ingroup, domination of others through
force: ethnic domination, classes, races
Nazis, slaveholders, Euro-American imperialists,
Romans, Communists, jihadis dreaming of
establishing the Caliphate, etc.

what will everyone else do? the payoffs to

action when coordination is required.

if I attack, and others potentially on my side

do not attack, then I die
if I attack, and others on my side also attack,
then we win, and gain resources, territory,
mates, status, etc.
so probability that others will join in is
critical
what will be a cue to my mind that others
will coordinate and attack?

the problem of coordination stringently

limits the formation of winning coalitions

hominid power scaled to the size of effectively

coordinated coalitions, but.
different individuals have different interests, and
different individuals do not have high quality
access to each others brains, and
the total number of possible but mutually
inconsistent coordinated projects is indefinitely
large; so, for any individual poised to take action:
it is very difficult to coalesce an aggregation into a
functioning coalition effectively coordinated
toward a specific goal

But it happens: French man as German troops march

into Paris, 1940: recalibration given change in group
status
fate of an
underconsumer
of
coalitional
coordination

our social programs are designed to treat (in

certain respects) coalitions as individuals

acts between individuals from two different groups

are treated as indicative of a WTR between the two
groups as unitary agents: they are not treated
morally by the mind in the same way as acts
between two individuals from the same group
so an action from an individual in Group A to a
member of Group B is framed (by our coalitional
programs) as an expression of Group As bid for a
specific equilibrium WTR toward Group B (i.e.,
each of the members of group A are entitled to
treat each of the members of Group B in that
fashion in the future): e.g., Rodney King

equilibrium WTRs reflect (and advertise) the

relative power of the two interactants

because when one person puts too little weight

on the others welfare (given relative power) then
the disadvantaged individual (or allies) harms or
withdraws benefits to readjust the
nonequilibrium WTR back to equilibrium
an act that does not meet with a negative
response by the affected party publicly signals
that that party accepts the actors WTR toward
him/her as reflecting their relative bargaining
power
which means he/she publicly ratifies a
representation of their relative status

proposal: humans have an evolved

psychology of outrage to turn
discoordinated members of a potential
group into a jointly acting coalition

proposal: subprograms in our evolved

coalitional psychology are designed to:

identify rivals (individuals or groups) whose status

reduction, expulsion, or extinction would be
advantageous to the individual
probe for and identify audiences of potential allies
who also benefit (not necessarily for the same
reason) from action against your rivals
be specially motivated to sift for, manufacture,

interpret, remember, elaborate, believe and/or

spread representations about the actions of the
rival (outrages)that depict the rival as harming
one or more members of a social category that
recruitable allies belong to

Events in which one or more members of one group

injure the welfare of members of another group
(outrages) are viewed as proposing an intergroup
welfare trade-off ratio (WTR) precedent that reflects
the relative power of the two groups and so sets
expectations for future interactions between members
of the two groups.
If enough members of the disadvantaged group feel
that they are collectively stronger than the proposed
WTR implies, awareness of the outrage mobilizes
coordinated aggressive action to reset the intergroup
WTR

It is generalization (in the minds of observers) of the

status (accepted WTRs) from one member of a
coalition to others that makes group status a public
good (Americans defeated by box cutters)

an outrage is:

an act (offense) real or fabricated by a status

rival (not just by anyone)
colorably (rather than actually)
expressing a disposition by the rival to act
without sufficient regard for the status (values
or welfare) of your audience of potential allies

i.e., with too low a WTR

provoking the anger program in the set of
individuals potentially impacted by that
precedent

prototype outrage

an event that expresses a disproportionately low WTR

between one or more members of an outgroup toward
one or more members of the ingroup
rape, murder (lynching), seizure of resources, land,
or property, contempt for group emblems, etc.
but the key is an act that expresses a WTR not justified
by the social power of the actor(s)
outrage in dominants caused by subordinates acting
without sufficient regard for the status of the
dominant: e.g., weeping former slaveholders

outrages are resources that benefit the ingroup

Because it is normally difficult to get individuals to

set aside competing agendas within groups
yet group power increases with coordination,
outrages (real or fabricated) become a resource
ingroup individuals strategically deploy to
mobilize joint action they (as individuals) benefit
from
truth is not at a premium
witchcraft accusations

2 linked reasons why outrages increase the

probability of coordination:
1.

2.

information about the event mobilizes the target

audience to anger because of the fitness harm
they would suffer from the same WTR precedent
being applied to them in the future
common knowledge produces coordination in
anger: everyone in group knows (1), and so
positive feedback of mutual potentiation:
rallying point latent appetite for coordination
actualized by mutual awareness of a reference
point for coordination:

an outrage is an offense by a
status rival, not an offense
simply by anyone

Intrinsic volatility: relative power depends not only

on potential numbers but on actual coordination: if
you can trigger coordination, you may generate a
revolution in relative status: probes
Because it is normally difficult to get individuals to
set aside competing agendas within groups, yet
group power increases with coordination, outrages
(real or fabricated) become a resource ingroup
individuals strategically deploy to mobilize joint
action they (as individuals) benefit from.
Because coalitions are good things to have, group
identities should crystallize around things that ease
coordination, such as common grievances: we like
to nourish our precious myths of outrage

Danish cartoon of Mohammed

Contender Jacques Barrot performs in the French PigSquealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baise's annual
festival. Contestants suckle, oink, and even imitate mating.

Bhopal: Muslims protest Danish cartoons

Syrians attack Danish embassy

Iranians burn French embassy

Kenyan Muslims protest

outrage is a major
engine of history

Reichstag fire

Remember the Maine: shipboard explosion in

Havana attributed to covert Spanish military
action: U.S. response was to sail into Manila, and
to sink the Spanish fleet there, starting the SpanishAmerican War

Greenwood race riot, Tulsa

War of Jenkins' Ear 1739-48
Cartoons/Koran flushed
Guantanamo per nationality
blood libel: sacrifice Gentiles
Abu Ghraib/Haditha
Valerie Plame Affair
Alamo, Remember the Maine
Reveres Boston Massacre,
Common Sense, Stamp Act
Sharons march to the
Temple Mount/Mosque
triggered Al-Aqsa Intifada
Hindu BJPs razing the
mosque Babri Masjid
Chagnon-Neel genocide

Rodney King & LA riots

Jenin 2002 false report that
1000s of Palestinians buried
in mass graves by the IDF 30
militants, 22 civilians, 23 IDF
existence of State of Israel
Guernica (German flyer)
Mathew Shepard, Stonewall
Central America: U.S.
abducts children for organs
Okinawa: rape of a young girl
by three GIs provoked years
of protest against US bases
Apartheid vs. other African
oppression, genocide
Versailles / Reichstag

Outrages

Apartheid
US kidnapping and harvest
organs from Central American
children
Gulf of Tonkin
Fort Sumter
Pearl Harbor
Taylor, Mexican American War
Kuwait rapes
PETA (fur vs. meat)
European criticism of American
slavery
Mumia in Paris
European attitude toward
Vietnam, Iraq
Amritsar
soccer war
Sabra-Shatilla
Israeli settlements on West Bank

Suppressed outrages

useful to dominating audience?

endless abuses in other African
countries
Lincoln vs. Mexican American
War (Polk)
Kennedy assassination
not show 9-11 footage
not report race or religion in news
reports
UN troop sexual abuse
French troops firing into crowd in
Gabon(?)
Armenian genocide (comes and
goes)
Saddam firing on U.S. aircraft
(assassination attempt on GHW
Bush )
expulsion of Jewish refugees from
Ottoman areas
Judenrein areas

types of outrages

primary outrage: act by outgroup expressing

low WTR toward ingroup member(s): primary
values (Al Qaeda & East Timor)
index or symbolic outrage: Hindu temple on
top of mosque, Sharon to Temple Mount;
parental permission for abortion; flag, Torah,
Koran, cartoon
vicarious outrage: rival treats non-ingroup
member with low WTR: why should anyone
care (from an adaptationist perspective)?
protected entity: protg

vicarious outrage: examples

abolitionist attitude toward southern slavery

antivivisectionist/PETA (which kills)
baby seal clubbings, fur-wearers
unborn children
patriarchal seizure of womens bodies
civilian deaths in war (why Europeans protest Vietnam)
global warming/Kyoto/environmentalism
101 Dalmatians
French/European attitudes toward American blacks
person on death row: an advertisement re: status rivals
maltreatment of English abolitionist minister far more
intense than previous mistreatment of slaves

outrage used to create and maintain new

collective identities: the creation of
Palestinians out of southern Syrians

dispossession as a cue to upregulate cohesion

ancestrally, land was the primary source of

production
dispossession of land a prepotent cue of the
underconsumption of coalitional solidarity
dispossession should be an especially potent
outrage or rallying point on which to coalesce a
more formidable coalition
the people dispossessed, who formerly may not
have hallucinated a collective identity
subsequently may develop one, defined around
what they have lost:
if I forget they, O Jerusalem.
Serb loss of Kosovo to the Ottomans

Palestinian as an identity forged by outrage

of dispossession and social subordination

Palestinian originally an adjective for many Jewish

organizations, not for Arab occupants of Palestinian
mandate
Palestinians in the present sense did not exist
at and after partition, roughly the same number of refugees
traveled in both directions, as with India and Pakistan, but
unlike Greek refugees from Turkey
sense of common outrage over dispossession and loss of
status, coupled with social system of refugee camps, and
with sense of latent support from immense world Moslem
community,
intensified by Israeli occupation of West bank

Social subordination as a cue to upregulate

allocation of effort to coalitional coordination

German loss in WWI

and the rise of the
Nazi party
South and social
subordination in the
wake of the Civil War
social subordination of
American blacks and
the rise of the Civil
Rights movement

Greenwood: white mob incinerates prosperous black

area of Tulsa: black male trips into white girl

Rosa Parks: emblematic WTR and mobilization of

movement to dismantle social subordination

social subordination and eagerness to believe in outrage

blood of the AfricanAmerican community: 4
recurrent themesthe
government:
1) uses blacks as guinea pigs
2) imposes self-destructive vices
3) targets black leaders
4) targets black pop. for attrition
More than half (60%) of
black New Yorkers indicated
belief that government
"deliberately" made drugs
available to poor black
people, versus 12% among
whites, "they want us to kill
each other off.

"life

Cosby: AIDS "started by

human beings to get after
certain people they don't like
Spike Lee AIDS is a government-engineered disease."
29% of black New Yorkers:
AIDS "deliberately created in
a laboratory in order to infect
black people," vs. 5% whites
Katrina: levee sabotaged on
purpose by US government
Brawley, O.J.Simpson, Mumia,
M. Barry, Nagin CIA target
Reality: lynchings, MLK
assassination, 16th Street
Baptist Church bombed: 4
children dead, etc., etc.

outrages, the gift that keeps on giving

those with an appetite for a strengthened group

identity (everyone except hopelessly subordinated?)
has an appetite to hear about outrages by status rivals
major component of news, implicit theme of most
political news; choose news organs based on the flavor
of the outrage they purvey
Al-Jazeera, cable news stations, web logs, columns,
talk radio, conspiracy theories, The Nation, The New
Republic, National Review: outrage of the week; 2
minute hate
the pleasures of outrage

Valley of the Wolves: Turkish film staring Gary Busey as a

Jewish US army doctor who cuts out the organs of Iraqi

prisoners at Abu Ghraib and sells them to wealthy

reciprocal outrages: determinants of the odd

collection of issues that become political issues

what determines the peculiar set of items that are

elevated to emblematic political issues in the U.S.?
if everyone agrees something is wrong, it will not put
members of the other coalition in the wrong
stable issues are those that will provoke disagreement:
wedge issues: stable outrages are ambiguous;
goal of activity is advantageous relative status change
demonstration of loyalty to coalition is an
unwillingness to see the other side: in the
evolutionary mentalese of the coalition programs, to
reframe is to admit that your side is weak. Or you
are disloyal

issues become markers of relative coalitional power

killing unborn children vs. taking control of

womens bodies away from them: backroom
abortions
coalitional absurdities: a single cell is a human; a 9
month fetus indistinguishable from a newborn
should be morally and legally equivalent to a single
cell
people for a womans right to control her own
body are often only in favor of this for abortion,
not for other ways a woman might control her own
body (drug ingestion, breast augmentation,
legalization of prostitution, etc.); because it is a
coalitional marker

Outrage is in the adaptations of the beholder

and not in the act

it is not that the action is objected to because it is

intrinsically or objectively immoral and outrageous
it is status rivals that are outrageous, not people who
are comparably immoral per se
outrage is the means by which you get others to attack
those you dislike
the means to get others to dislike your adversaries may
be (often are) different from the reason why you dislike
your adversary (witchcraft accusations and probes)
no political movement even close to ethical
equipotentiality: contrast with equipotentiality
clarifying--deviations show principles at work

outrage and political ideology

status rivals: Carthago delenda est

German revanchism
Democratic party: anti-Federalist anti-urban elite
Republican party: anti-slavery
Marx: potential audience of workers

ideology: only source of value is labor

all capital is stolen from labor
invention of ideology that aligned numerous with grievance of
theft and a call to coordinated solidarity against the few
expropriators
(putting intellectuals into leadership roles, while dismantling
pesky limited government restrictions)
wealthy, because of c/b relationships, are inherently
outrageous

reciprocal outrages: determinants of the odd

collection of issues that become political issues

what determines the peculiar set of items that are

elevated to emblematic political issues in the U.S.?
if everyone agrees something is wrong, it will not put
members of the other coalition in the wrong
stable issues are those that will provoke disagreement:
wedge issues: stable outrages are ambiguous;
goal of activity is advantageous relative status change
demonstration of loyalty to coalition is an
unwillingness to see the other side: in the
evolutionary mentalese of the coalition programs, to
reframe is to admit that your side is weak. Or you
are disloyal

issues become markers of relative coalitional power

killing unborn children vs. taking control of

womens bodies away from them: backroom
abortions
coalitional absurdities: a single cell is a human; a 9
month fetus indistinguishable from a newborn
should be morally and legally equivalent to a single
cell
people for a womans right to control her own
body are often only in favor of this for abortion,
not for other ways a woman might control her own
body (drug ingestion, breast augmentation,
legalization of prostitution, etc.); because it is a
coalitional marker

ambiguous political issues as indices of relative status:

potential ascendance and comparative subordination

why so many cultural issues

teaching Darwinism is an index
PETA / vivisection

fur vs. meat (anti-wealth)

capital punishment
tax rates
prayer in school
Arctic Wildlife preserve, etc.
affirmative action / race-based preferences
bilingualism

Turkish cartoon about Iraq

The pleasures of sharing

outrage with others

depiction of Jews
engaged in
cannibalistic feast of
Christians

North African protest of Danish cartoons

END

Where to go empirically?

cognitive effects: reasoning about magnitudes of wrong

kinds of reasoning:

attribution of blame
moral reasoning (manipulation of membership and moral
judgment)
IAT? Stroup?
Wason/free rider?

who said what (prime different identities)

Bob method
memory effects (given that you remember event,
remember perpetrator), etc.

Great majority of imams in the west deny that al qaeda

was responsible for 911
Foley vs. Gerry Studds: 70 democratic congressmen
voted against censure

Notes

Come into existence, endure, pass outo f existence

Designed for a smaller social world, small groups; how do mechanisms see
the large present world in terms of assumed small world (voters paradox)
Prototype outrage: negative even happens to someone like yourself; like a
sufficient number of others, who if they adopted same group identity,
identified that away by antagonists;
Cost benefit ratio for outrage
Claims about machinery: preconscious
N-party exchange
Beliefs dont matter
Humans evolved in populations: designed for population dynamic and
navigation; small populations;

Intro Notes

Bit under the weather, bid sympathy, attribute bad talk to health,
sympathy
Students know great health, talk be just as bad
Thank John and Kevin Smith
Delighted, very much wanted to com, long term goal of mine,
hope and anticipate community of scholars like this come into
existence; unpack human nature, have implications for political
science, could be like a natural science
dream of mine, several decades, evoloutionary psychology
mature to the point where starting to relate to political science,
provide real natural science foundations

One kind of evolutionarily recurrent social collectivity is the

amplification coalition, whose function is the amplification
by coordinated action of the power of its individual
members, especially in conflicts with individuals from
outgroups. Events in which one or more members of one
group injure the welfare of members of another group
(outrages) are viewed as proposing an intergroup welfare
trade-off ratio (WTR) precedent that reflects the relative
power of the two groups and so sets expectations for future
interactions between members of the two groups. If the
disadvantaged group feels stronger than the proposed WTR
implies, awareness of the outrage mobilizes coordinated
aggressive action to reset the intergroup WTR. Because it
is normally difficult to get individuals to set aside
competing agendas within groups, yet group power
increases with coordination, outrages (real or fabricated)
become a resource ingroup individuals strategically deploy
to mobilize joint action they (as individuals) benefit from.

underconsumption: Mongols and Russia; The American

South, Palestinians

cross a boundary: target audience potentially mobilized

by the fitness harm of the same precedent being applied
to them
this a different criterion from the reason why you
dislike x
hinge of history
stirred up, let them eat cake
it is status rivals that are outrageous, not people who
are comparably immoral per se

ethical equipotentiality: see the principles, use it as a

contrast to clarify principles
cross a boundary: target audience potentially mobilized
by the fitness harm of the same precedent being applied
to them
this a different criterion from the reason why you
dislike x
Trivers, pleasures

D.W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)

When Griffith released the film in 1915, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (or NAACP) and other groups protested;
the NAACP published a 47-page pamphlet titled "Fighting a Vicious Film:
Protest Against The Birth of a Nation," in which they referred to the film as
"three miles of filth." W. E. B. Du Bois published scathing reviews in The
Crisis, spurring a heated debate among the National Board of Censorship of
Motion Pictures as to whether the film should be shown in New York.
However, President and former history professor Woodrow Wilson viewed
the film at the White House and proclaimed it not only historically accurate,
but like "history writ with lightning." Like Woodrow Wilson, many whites felt
it a truthful and accurate portrayal of racial politics, so much so that they
flocked to join the rejuvenated Ku Klux Klan. The years after Griffith
released The Birth of a Nation saw massive race riots throughout the country,
peaking especially in the North in 1919; many historians lay the blame for this
racial conflict on Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.

Jordanian muslims protext

Pakistanis

Sri Lanka

Come on everyone, everyone get together, time to hate

one another right now

n-party exchange and the problem of

coordination: how to create a coalition?

acts between individuals from two different

coalitions are not treated morally by the
mind in the same way as acts between two
individuals from the same group

The Washington Post had some of the supposedly New and Improved, Now with Less Hate! textbooks analyzed, and here is just some
of what they found (equivalent American school grade shown):
FIRST GRADE
"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies
outside of Islam enters ____________." FIFTH GRADE
"Whoever obeys the Prophet and accepts the oneness of God cannot maintain a loyal friendship with those who oppose God and
His Prophet, even if they are his closest relatives."
"It is forbidden for a Muslim to be a loyal friend to someone who does not believe in God and His Prophet, or someone who
fights the religion of Islam."
"A Muslim, even if he lives far away, is your brother in religion. Someone who opposes God, even if he is your brother by family
tie, is your enemy in religion."
SIXTH GRADE
"Just as Muslims were successful in the past when they came together in a sincere endeavor to evict the Christian crusaders from
Palestine, so will the Arabs and Muslims emerge victorious, God willing, against the Jews and their allies if they stand together and
fight a true jihad for God, for this is within God's power."
EIGHTH GRADE
"[...] The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."
NINTH GRADE
"The clash between this [Muslim] community (umma) and the Jews and Christians has endured, and it will continue as long as
God wills."
"It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour [of judgment]."
"Muslims will triumph because they are right. He who is right is always victorious, even if most people are against him."
ELEVENTH GRADE
"The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others."
"If one comes to a place where there is a mixture of Muslims and infidels, one should offer a greeting intended for the Muslims."
"Do not yield to them [Christians and Jews] on a narrow road out of honor and respect."
TWELFTH GRADE
"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the
summit of Islam. This religion arose through jihad and through jihad was its banner raised high. It is one of the noblest acts,
which brings one closer to God, and one of the most magnificent acts of obedience to God."

1) an event that expresses and WTR between one or

more members of ingroups vs. outgroups
2) an event that expresses an offense by a status rival
what is an offense?

tendency to express low WTRs against those who cannot

defend selves

maltreatment of animal
disposition that might generalize, pose threat;

something generally accepted as wrong

the more the act was thought of by the perpetrator(s)

are generalizing to your audience
action communicates an attitude genuinely generalized
to the audience (e.g., lynched because black)

1) an event that expresses and WTR between one or

more members of ingroups vs. outgroups
2) an event that expresses an offense by a status rival
what is an offense?

tendency to express low WTRs against those who cannot

defend selves

maltreatment of animal
disposition that might generalize, pose threat;

something generally accepted as wrong

an outrage is an offense by a status rival

1) an event that expresses and WTR between one or more

members of ingroups vs. outgroups
2) an event that expresses an offense by a status rival
what is an offense?

tendency to express low WTRs against those who cannot defend

selves

maltreatment of animal
disposition that might generalize, pose threat;

something generally accepted as wrong

disposition to act with disregard for the status of your audience

of potential allies
status rival

Internal regulatory variables (IRVs) derive

their functional meaning from:
the set of inputs and procedures that
compute their values, and
the set of output systems that use these
values to determine other variables
downstream in the system
including, at the last stage, inputs to evolved
decision rules

Welfare trade-off ratio (WTR): Wother / Wactor

an internal variable regulating how much an actor trades
off her/his welfare to improve the welfare of another
individual

WTR regulates decisions to help (or to avoid harming)

Wyou / Wme > 1 (e.g., toward my child)
Wyou / Wme = 1 (e.g., toward an active reciprocity partner)
Wyou / Wme < 1 (e.g., someone I dont care much about)

intrinsic welfare trade-off ratio: when no one is looking

monitored welfare trade-off ratio: when affected
individual might observe or learn of expressed tradeoff ratio (and respond)

1) an event that expresses and WTR between one or

more members of ingroups vs. outgroups
2) an event that expresses an offense by a status rival
what is an offense?

tendency to express low WTRs against those who cannot

defend selves

maltreatment of animal
disposition that might generalize, pose threat;

something generally accepted as wrong

there are no short, easy projects.

first publication: MDE.

outrage, abc news: soldier injured, wounded, asked to
return enlistment bonus because only served 2/3 of
sentence; turned over creditors, given bad credit record;
financial friendly fire; army specialist tyson johnson
of mobile alabama; congressman tom davis; staff
seargeant ryan kelly lost his leg, overpaid combat bonus
pay

root causes
existence of outrages, political sections, outrage of the
week; 24 hour news stations
like to hear them
Orwell: 2 minute hate
odd collection of issues that become political
Duke, Haditha, union paradox
mutual potentiation

Hindu nationalist party, the BJPs proposal to tear down the

mosque Babri Masjid, and replace it with a Hindu temple. They
claimed Indias Muslim conquerors built it in a sacred spot; the
birthplace of the Hindu God Rama. Murali Manohar Joshi, a BJP
leader, explained the campaign to foreign reporters.
MURALI MANOHAR JOSHI: If Hitler would have been
victorious in the second world war and there would have been a
statue of Hitler in Trafalgar Square, and in 1990 the Britishers
would have been liberated from Hitlers yoke, what would they
have done to that statue of Hitler?
In 1992, rioters stormed the mosque called Babri Masjid and
razed it. The incident sparked violent clashes that claimed
dozens of Hindu and Muslim lives

1) an event that expresses and WTR between one or

more members of ingroups vs. outgroups
2) an event that expresses an offense by a status rival
what is an offense?

tendency to express low WTRs against those who cannot

defend selves

maltreatment of animal

something generally accepted as wrong

Emo Phillips

a conversation with a suicidal man threatening to jump off a bridge:

Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said,
"God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian."
I said, "Me too. Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant."
I said, "Me too. What franchise?" He says, "Baptist."
I said, "Me too. Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He says, "Northern Baptist."
I said, "Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" He says, "Northern
Conservative Baptist."
I said, "Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed
Baptist?" He says, "Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist."
I said, "Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, or Northern
Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Eastern Region?" He says, "Northern Conservative
Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region."
I said, "Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1879
or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1912?" He says,
Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1912."
I said, "Die, heretic!" and I pushed him over.

One of the pictures displayed around the Middle East

by a Danish Islamic group seeking to whip up antiinfidel rage supposedly showed Mohammed as a pig.
Neandernews has discovered the source for this
pictureand it has nothing to do with Mohammed

They should because they are the same! No, not a satire of Mohammed nor any other
sacred Islamic figure but a photo of Jacques Barrot, a pig squealing contestant at the
French Pig-Squealing Championships in Trie-sur-Baises annual festival. NeanderNews
discovered this photo, taken by Bob Edme of AP, posted on an August 15, 2005 AP
story seen here on MSNBCs website.
As Gateway Pundit, Counter Terrorism Blog and others have reported Danish Imam
Ahmad Abu Ladan, leader of The Islamic Society of Denmark, toured the middle east
to create awareness of supposed anti-Islamic cartoons and included the above black
and white photo as well as two other undocumented examples. Akhmad Akkari,
spokesman of the tour, explained that the three drawings had been added to give an
insight in how hateful the atmosphere in Denmark is towards Muslims.
Akkari claimed he does not know the origin of the three pictures. He said they had
been sent anonymously to Danish Muslims. However, when Danish newspaper Ekstra
Bladet asked if it could talk to these Muslims, Akkari refused to reveal their identity.
BBC World aired a story on 1-30-2006 showing the three non-published images and
claimed they had been published in Denmarks Jyllands-Posten, these images however
had never been published in Jyllands-Posten.
NeanderNews wonders if Jacques knows what he has started? A big kudos to The
Celtic Semite for this great lead.

we like to hear about outrages

root causes
existence of outrages, political sections, outrage of the
week; 24 hour news stations
like to hear them

Duke, Haditha, union paradox

union paradox

turn inside out like a sock

fields are not so separate
all mutually relevant
all involved in the same larger enterprise

lyrics slightly modified

The pleasure of shared

outrage toward outgroup
on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
try to hate outgroup
members right now

depiction of Jews engaged

in cannibalistic feast of
Christians

One kind of evolutionarily recurrent social collectivity is the

amplification coalition, whose function is the amplification
by coordinated action of the power of its individual
members, especially in conflicts with individuals from
outgroups. Events in which one or more members of one
group injure the welfare of members of another group
(outrages) are viewed as proposing an intergroup welfare
trade-off ratio (WTR) precedent that reflects the relative
power of the two groups and so sets expectations for future
interactions between members of the two groups. If the
disadvantaged group feels stronger than the proposed WTR
implies, awareness of the outrage mobilizes coordinated
aggressive action to reset the intergroup WTR. Because it
is normally difficult to get individuals to set aside
competing agendas within groups, yet group power
increases with coordination, outrages (real or fabricated)
become a resource ingroup individuals strategically deploy
to mobilize joint action they (as individuals) benefit from.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fhrer!" (One people, one

empire, one leader!)

an outrage is an offense by a status rival

an event that expresses an offense by a status rival

what is an offense?

tendency to express low WTRs against those who cannot

defend selves

maltreatment of animal
disposition that might generalize, pose threat;

something generally accepted as wrong

disposition to act with disregard for the status of your

audience of potential allies
status rival

Notes

formidability, anger,
politics
group hallucination
computational devices, architecture
dont exist if we dont believe in them; each mind
coordinated, common set of representations, or
discordant; like fairies
example of architecture

KILLER SPECIES? or NOT?

"While human nature no doubt plays a role in bringing about war,

it cannot by itself explain both war and peace, except by the simple
statement that sometimes he fights and sometimes he does not."
Kenneth Waltz: Man, War, and State

What we know about individual aggression/anger

Automatic computation of actors WTR toward self (from positive &

negative consequences of action for self and actor). (Yes)
Low expressed WTR toward you serves to trigger anger (Yes)
Holding cost imposed constant, less anger triggered when target
expected a large benefit than a small one. (Yes)

Formidability is relative ability to inflict harm

based on physical strength, fighting skills, power of social allies,
position in hierarchy, value of cooperation, etc.
Regulatory variables corresponding to relative formidability should
be automatically computed (Yes)
Formidability should regulate use of aggression (Yes)
Credible threats of harm can be deployed to raise others WTR
toward self; formidable individual feels entitled to more respect
If formid. ind. feels entitled to higher WTR, then a given harm
should elicit more anger in stronger individuals than in weaker ones
(Yes)

groups are joint hallucinations.

exist only if they are represented in the minds

of individuals: real
in different minds, there can be a coordination
of representations

or discoordination

hard to achieve and maintain

initial condition, and path of least resistance

groups are parameters subsisting in evolved

programs distributed in individual minds in
populations
in short, groups are imperfectly coordinated
mental entities

we evolved to hallucinate them with ease and

conviction: alliance detection

because when they are imagined into existence

they have real material consequences
they can be highly fitness-promoting
hallucinations
those that hallucinate vividly can harvest major
fitness advantages by working in a coordinated
way with others that are equally deluded
human mental and social life populated by group
representations, from momentary dyadic alliances
to nation states

relative power and status of groups determines how

disputes are resolved
larger group, or better organized group, can bias
outcomes
moving back and forth between the level of physical
violence and represented status
when a perceived discrepancy, then become
violent
threat of being seen as weak, of letting a challenge
go by

 Martin Muller