Step 11 - The Whispers Of 10,000 Generations, Dunbar’s 150 & Evolutionary Mismatch

Lesson Summary

This lesson teaches us the importance of overcoming the evolutionary mismatch and explains how it influences us daily in possible negative ways.

Scientifically speaking our genes change approximately 1% for every 10.000 years. This means that our instincts and impulses that control our responses to our environment are influenced by our historic heritage. This influence is called the voices of 10.000 generations.

Everyday those voices of 10.000 generations whisper to us, and we need the awareness to adapt to this fact, because our world has changed. What our "gut" tells us to do, might not be good anymore, because it is built on thousands of generations that had different living conditions.

Just 100 years ago around 90% of the population lived in rural areas and 10% in urban areas. Today this ratio has been reversed. And 1.000 years ago, people were more likely to die from starvation, than be fat.

Because our environment has rapidly and radically changed through the industrialization our intrinsic biological impulses haven't yet adapted.

We still live with voices in our head that tell us what to do and what to refrain from. But when those voices are working against us, as they sometimes do, they spread depression, chronic disease and general unhappiness. This mismatch of genetically rooted influence which works against us, is called the "evolutionary mismatch", because our neural programming doesn't have the genetic memory to understand the complexity of the modern world.

Physically our bodies are accustomed of sleeping in the dark and being awake in the morning. Lights didn't exist. They slept on the ground. Humans slept in close proximity with one another to the sounds of the fire and the sounds of our relatives inside the same tent. Food was scarce, so when we found food with sugar, fat and salt, our brain told us to eat as much as we can.

Financially we were accustomed to spend our resources, because life was short. Saving was not part of our evolutionary heritage.

Love and relationships wise we stayed a life long with the people we grew up with. And the more trouble we endured with them, the closer they got to us.

Brought to our modern world this means, that our brain still tells us to eat sweet, salty or fat food, although we live in abundance now and it is bad for us. We produce insomnia and depression, because we try to make new friends, although we are not wired to make friendships in our adulthood. Our environment changed. And our genes didn't change with it. People are the same as they've been.

Modern aches are due to our mismatch. And though our voices of 10.000 generations served us well, we have to be careful to decide, when we can hear our gut and when not.

Literally half the battle is to understand and be aware of this concept.

Thus revive old friendships. Always keep with old friends.

The world is at war with you. Don't depend on your willpower to not eat the pringles, because you have the voices of 10.000 generations against you.

Bond with old teachers. Old family members. But don't pick anyone. They still have to qualify for if they block you on your way to the good life.

In the modern world, if you don't know who the sucker is, than you are the sucker. Don't be the sucker!

Bow your knee to those 10.000 generations, because the genes just change 1% for every 10.000 years. So even if we get 10.000 years experience, we will still be 99% genetically of how the people were 10.000 years ago.

Our task is to be aware of the evolutionary mismatch. To understand that the modern world is at prey with us and if we don't adapt to it, we will get sick, broke and unhappy, if we don't control those whispers of 10.000 generations.

They are forceful and we shouldn't rely on our will power to control them. Instead we should adapt. If you work with those voices, they get you ahead.

And remember, if we don't feel vulnerable, our mind will make us feel depressed, because we were built to depend on each other.

Questions

1. What is a specific area of your life where the whispers of 10,000 generations is not working, and what could you do to change it?

   Dependence. I always thought the ultimate goal is independence, but I am wrong here. I kept saying to myself that "we are all born alone, we all die alone." But the truth is, that we are born in a social group, and we should die around a social group. This piece I got from Mr. Lieberman.

   I also thought that all relationships, meaning those built in youth and those built in adulthood, can have the same importance for happiness. Though a look around us at the numbers of reality seem to indicate, that there might truly be a difficulty in bonding ability between adults. I am not sure this applies to romance though.

   I will get in touch back with: Markus Zink, Rober Burmeister, Natascha Malla, Giorgos Malla, Oliver Blomel, Yalzin, Matina Kalamara, Theo Pitzawa,