{"id":5269,"date":"2018-06-17T11:32:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-17T15:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/?p=5269"},"modified":"2023-12-16T16:04:44","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T21:04:44","slug":"51-cooperation-and-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/?p=5269","title":{"rendered":"51. Cooperation and Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Unlike<\/figure>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

Chapter 2: What Were They Thinking?<\/p>\n

Digression: Government from the Paleolithic to Philadelphia<\/p>\n

Page 51: Cooperation and Trust<\/p>\n

Groups of prehistoric people going about their day.<\/em><\/p>\n

SIS (narrating)<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Ours is an inherently — and intensely<\/em> — social<\/strong> species.<\/p>\n

Wolves and chimps.<\/em><\/p>\n

WOLF 1<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Yeah, but…<\/p>\n

WOLF 2<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0…so are we!<\/strong><\/p>\n

CHIMP 1<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0You homo sapiens<\/em> are the only species that ever invented government.<\/strong><\/p>\n

CHIMP 2<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0How come?<\/p>\n

File of chimps walking along.<\/em><\/p>\n

SIS (narrating)<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps it all comes down to teamwork.<\/strong> Even our closest cousins, the chimpanzees, can\u2019t truly function as a team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Sure, they\u2019re hunt and forage together<\/em>, in groups of 30 or 50, but they do so as 30 or so individuals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Any collaboration is a self-interested reaction to what they see others doing. It\u2019s never out of any desire to help.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Humans working together to fight off a sabre-toothed cat with stones and spears.<\/em><\/p>\n

SIS (narrating)<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Humans are different:<\/strong><\/p>\n

COOPERATION<\/span> <\/strong>is our<\/strong> survival skill.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in our DNA!\u00a0We\u2019re hardwired<\/strong> to be helpful.<\/p>\n

Even without government, even as young children, even without being told or asked, humans instinctively want<\/strong> to work with<\/strong> others.<\/p>\n

We care<\/strong> how others feel, what they<\/strong> need, what we can do for them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re so strongly motivated to cooperate, we\u2019ll pitch in an invite others to join us, just for the sake of doing it together.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The same humans, now roasting and eating the saber-tooth cat\u2019s meat, with its pelt hanging behind.<\/em><\/p>\n

SIS (narrating)<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0As members of a team, we thrive!<\/strong><\/p>\n

PEOPLE<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Team! Team! Team!<\/p>\n

Lone man in the snow being followed by wolves.<\/em><\/p>\n

SIS (narrating)<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Alone, on the other hand…<\/p>\n

WOLF<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Social life is<\/strong> life, wouldn\u2019t you say?<\/p>\n

People relying on each other.<\/em><\/p>\n

SIS (narrating)<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0True cooperation is impossible without a few prerequisites. One of the big ones is\u00a0TRUST<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

FRUIT PICKERS<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0I can rely on them!<\/p>\n

FIGHTING MEN<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s got my back!<\/p>\n

FORAGING WOMAN<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019ll watch my kids!<\/p>\n

OLDER WOMEN<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0She\u2019ll share what she finds!<\/p>\n

Average Joe and Sis.<\/em><\/p>\n

JOE<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0And this is relevant to what the Framers<\/strong> thought about government…<\/strong><\/p>\n

…how?<\/p>\n

SIS<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0Well…<\/p>\n

You could<\/strong> say the changes and challenges of government throughout history all boil down to people asking \u201cwho can I trust?\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Or you could, y\u2019know, trust me<\/strong> and let me get on with it!<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>View Transcript<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you would like to learn more, here are just a few suggestions to get you started:<\/p>\n

51. Cooperation and Trust<\/u><\/p>\n

Articles:<\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph Henrich and Michael Muthukrishna, \u201cThe Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation,\u201d Annual Review of Psychology<\/em>, Vol. 72 (2021): 207-240.<\/p>\n

Coren L. Apicella and Joan B. Silk, \u201cThe Evolution of Human Cooperation,\u201d Current Biology<\/em>, Vol. 29 (2019): R447-R450.<\/p>\n

Frank Krueger and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, \u201cToward a Model of Interpersonal Trust Drawn from Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics,\u201d Trends in Neurosciences<\/em>, Vol. 42, No. 2 (February 2019): 92-101.<\/p>\n

Robert Kurzban, Maxwell N. Burton-Chellew, and Stuart A. West, \u201cThe Evolution of Altruism in Humans,\u201d Annual Review of Psychology<\/em>, Vol. 66 (January 2015): 575-599.<\/p>\n

R. I. M. Dunbar, \u201cBridging the Bonding Gap: The Transition from Primates to Humans,\u201d Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B<\/em>, Vol. 367 (2012): 1837-1846.<\/p>\n

Michael Tomasello, Alicia P. Melis, Claudio Tennie, Emily Wyman, and Esther Herrmann, \u201cTwo Key Steps in the Evolution of Human Cooperation: The Interdependence Hypothesis,\u201d Current Anthropology<\/em>, Vol. 53, No. 6 (December 2012): 673-692.<\/p>\n

Kevin A. Pelphrey and James P. Morris, \u201cBrain Mechanisms for Interpreting the Actions of Others from Biological-Motion Cues,\u201d Current Directions in Psychological Science<\/em>, Vol. 15, No. 3 (June 2006): 136-140.<\/p>\n

Mojdeh Mohtashemi and Lik Mui, \u201cEvolution of Indirect Reciprocity by Social Information: The Role of Trust and Reputation in Evolution of Altruism,\u201d Journal of Theoretical Biology<\/em>, Vol. 223, No. 4 (August 2003): 523-531.<\/p>\n

Feel free to offer more suggestions in the comments!<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>View Further Reading<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is only half of the page that I intended to put up. But I was traveling all week, and didn’t have a chance to finish it. Rather than make you wait for the rest, here’s this bit at least!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. This is only half of the page that I intended to put up. But I was traveling all week, and didn’t have a chance to finish it. Rather than make you wait for the rest, here’s this bit at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,35,58,1,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-brief-history-of-government","category-constitutional-law","category-the-cognitive-revolution","category-uncategorized","category-what-were-they-thinking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawcomic.net\/guide\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}