WaitButWhy
A Game of Giants
To survive through human history, it makes sense that our genes had to be good at competing as an individual against their brother and competing with their family against other families and competing with their tribe against other tribes.
To me, someone is being tribal when they’re thinking and behaving more like a piece of a larger organism than as an independent organism themselves.
To understand the world around us, you can’t think only about people as individuals—we need to get to know the tribal mindset. So what are some elements of a tribal mindset?
Somewhere down the line of human history, evolution happened upon a new tool that put human tribalism on steroids
“Me against my brothers; my brothers and me against my cousins; my cousins, my brothers, and me against strangers.”
First, their primal motivations are super complex. On top of all the standard animal desires, humans are incentivized by all kinds of weird Snausages and electric fences. They crave self-esteem and want to avoid shame. They yearn for praise and acceptance and detest loneliness or embarrassment. They pine for meaning and fulfillment and they fear regret. They’re gratified by helping others and guilty when they cause pain. They’re terrified of their own mortality.
Motivation = primal motivations + values + moral
If you want to change someone’s behavior, easier than altering their motivation or changing their actual environment is altering their perception of reality
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