Eusociality and Psychopathy

When a new component of culture appears, and the culturgen is adaptive for many generations, the tribal genome will “embrace” the culturgen and welcome it during future generations. The genes that either welcome or reject culturgens generate what we refer to as “human nature.” Whereas cultural evolution can change abruptly, such as during one generation, human nature evolves much slower, requiring hundreds or more generations for any change to occur. Human nature evolved during the 2.5 million years of the Pleistocene, when there was plenty of time for genes to co-evolve with cultural innovations (Lumsden and Wilson, 1981).

The Holocene’s 11,700 years is too short for significant genetic evolution to have occurred; yet, cultural changes have happened at a furious rate. Since essentially all of the new Holocene culturgens were never experienced by our Pleistocene ancestors our genetically created nature has no wisdom to draw upon for evaluating and either accepting or rejecting them. This is why the Holocene’s many amazing civilizations are at such a high risk of collapsing.

Consequently, it is unsurprising that many people are not only discontent with civilization, but they secretly want to destroy it and return to an ancient lifestyle of small tribes (where everyone knows everyone), simple strivings (hunting and gathering), the calm of the country (no cities) and a sense of a community that can be relied upon to support each tribesman (Gary, 2019). This discontent can accumulate and become an organized destructive force. Every society faces times challenged by disintegration, and sometimes recovery fails, and collapse occurs (Turchin, 2023).

Instincts that served the Pleistocene tribe will have appeal. Nationalism will grow, and there will be an unwillingness to cooperate with neighboring societies. During the Pleistocene, when a tribe felt threatened by the prospect of inter-tribal warfare, the tribesmen supported elevating a prominent person to the position of “strong leader” and adopting a hierarchical social organization (Fog, 2020). Psychopaths may only represent 0.8 % of men, and 0.1 % of women (Kiehl, 2014), but they employ an uncanny sense for what their victims want (Hare, 1992) and are able to exert an over-sized influence on a society's culture. They will seek leadership by promising a return to some past time, when things were great – i.e., to a faintly remembered Pleistocene setting.

This is now a global trend. Societies that have been hijacked by psychopaths become autocracies, which eventually evolve into fascist kleptocracies. This is most clearly illustrated by Putin's Russia. A kleptocracy is not only incapable of solving societal problems, it is unmotivated to do so. As the rest of the world's hoi poloi clamor for a return to when times were great, a subconsciously remembered version of the Pleistocene, we must face the prospect that the civilized world is doomed!

During most of the Holocene societies were not in communication with each other, so when one collapsed the others didn’t. But during the past century societies became linked in many ways, so we now risk seeing one collapse trigger the others. Global warming is a prime example of this dangerous inter-connectedness. Because global warming and associated climate changes strain all societies, frustration of the populous with their governance will be widespread.

Good people may remain optimistic about the future, but their constructive efforts are small and futile. It is possible that humanity will undergo a massive die-off starting this century, and the end-point will be where we were before the Holocene. The global population could then be only a few million. Everyone would be living in tribes of 100 to 200 people - hunting and gathering, living without city comforts, and constantly concerned about an attack by a neighbor tribe.

I want to restate the killer ape idea by suggesting that only some humans are descended in this way. However, this is genetically impossible, so instead I will invoke a little-known theory for animal behavior called “eusociality.”

The ants are the most famous eusocial species because they illustrate the key concept of individual behavior that is 100 % devoted to supporting their collective, the colony. So far, only 17 species have been identified as fully eusocial (Wilson, 2014). E. O. Wilson has suggested that humans are partially eusocial (Wilson, 2012). A requirement for a transition toward eusociality is that groups of individuals compete with each other. Ant colonies do this, but to some extent so do chimpanzees.

Chimpanzee troops of 50 to 150 individuals compete for territory with fruit trees and other food sources. A small group is routinely devoted to border patrol duty. The border patrollers protect territorial borders and look for opportunities to kill small groups of neighbor troop individuals as a way to not only weaken the neighbor troop but also expand the home troop territory.

A key concept for understanding eusociality is that when groups of individuals compete there are evolutionary rewards for groups that consist of individuals with a range of talents. For example, one troop niche is border patrolling, another is tool-making, hunting, leadership, etc.

Present-day humans consist of individuals with a variety of talents. During the 2.5 million years of the Pleistocene human tribes had memberships totaling 100 to 200 individuals. In a small tribe everyone knows everyone, so when they formed a team they must have been able to optimize talents to form the most effective team. There could have been a team for hut construction, another for tool-making, hunting, and of course, border patrolling. Who was best suited for border patrolling? The descendants of killer apes!

The genes for different talents are present in proportions of individuals that best serve the tribe. In other words, artisan genes (for tool- and weapon-making) should be found in 5 to 10 % of men, so that a tribe with a total population of 150, with 50 adult men, would have 3 to 5 men who are good at artisan tasks (at least one of whom would be assigned for artisan duty). At any given time at least one man should serve as tribal chief, so a similar percentage of men would have genes for that talent. A greater percentage of men would have the killer gene since border patrolling teams (for chimps as well as human primitive tribes) consist of about 5 to 10 individuals. The killer gene percentage should therefore be ~ 20 %. The presence of genes for producing talents for optimum group performance is a well-developed theory in sociobiology; it is referred to as “evolutionarily stable strategy” – or ESS.

I have described this matter in great detail in my book Eusociality and Psychopathy. I conclude that humans have elaborated ESS to include a sophisticated response to changes in a tribe's social condition. Instead of every tribe producing 20 % of killers, the newly-evolved human ESS produces ~ 40 % of humans who are capable of adopting the killer personality if that is optimum for their society. In other words, as the ESS varies so does the incidence of people expressing the killer personality. Using psychological testing results for “Right Wing Authoritarianism” (RWA) it was established that among societies that were measured in 2020, 6 % to 26 % of the population had high RWA scores. I suggest that the need for killer people varies from close to zero to maybe 40 % depending on the level of fear in a society. I speculate that ~ 40 % of a typical contemporary population is capable of becoming killers and that at any given time the incidence of the killer personality is somewhere within the range 0 to 40 %. A politically incorrect question that begs an answer: "Do some racial populations have different pre-killer maxima than 40 %?"

Fog, Agner, 2017, Warlike and Peaceful Societies: The Interaction of Genes and Culture, Open Book Publishers, UK

Gary, Bruce, 2019, Civility and its Discontents, Reductionist Publications, Hereford, AZ

Hare, Robert D.,1993, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopath Among Us, The Guilford Press, New York

Kiehl, Kent A., 2014, The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience, Crown Publishers, New York

Lumsden, Charles and Edward Wilson, 1981, Genes, Mind and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Turchin, Peter, 2023, End Times, Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration, Penguin Press, New York

Wilson, Edward O., 2012, The Social Conquest of Earth, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation

Wilson, Edward O., 2014, The Meaning of Human Existence, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation