{"id":6991,"date":"2015-03-30T19:14:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T00:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=6991"},"modified":"2015-03-30T19:14:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T00:14:48","slug":"ready-for-the-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=6991","title":{"rendered":"Ready for the revolution?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"post-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/leavingbabylon.wordpress.com\/2015\/03\/26\/ready-for-the-revolution\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ready for the\u00a0revolution?<\/a><\/h3>\n<blockquote><p>Once aggrandizers are given an inch of leeway under favorable resource conditions, they quickly stretch that inch into a mile and keep on going.<br \/>\n\u2014 Brian Hayden<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Once upon a time, there lived the ancestral apes that gave rise to humans, chimpanzees and bonobos.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/leavingbabylon.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/03\/evolution-of-apes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-6534\" src=\"https:\/\/leavingbabylon.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/03\/evolution-of-apes.jpg?w=254&amp;h=225\" alt=\"Figure 1\" width=\"254\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nIn all likelihood, they lived in bands dominated by the strongest, most aggressive individuals \u2014 the male\u00a0<em>alphas<\/em>. This tends to produce a rather disagreeable state of affairs where anyone can be humiliated or brutalized at any moment, and the best food and most mates go to just a few. Even<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/04\/13\/science\/no-time-for-bullies-baboons-retool-their-culture.html\">baboons would rather opt out<\/a>\u00a0when the opportunity arises! In addition, our growing brains demanded the fats found only in scarce meat which the\u00a0<em>alphas<\/em>commandeered.<\/p>\n<p>Evolution snaked forward. The chimps pretty much put up with the true and tried. Bonobos evolved out of this unpleasant arrangement into an alliance of females, cemented by mutual sexual pleasuring. Humans likewise evolved out and into an alliance of\u00a0<em>betas<\/em>, cemented by unprecedented, increasingly more subtle communication abilities, eventually including laughter and speech.<\/p>\n<p>In conjunction with weapons-at-a-distance that equalized brawn and brains, power came to be shared, and so was the meat. The resulting egalitarian bands, a durable and satisfying arrangement, saw humans through the harshness of repeated ice ages and other natural calamities. During this time, humans became survivors par excellence on the planetary stage. The egalitarian strategy of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/leavingbabylon.wordpress.com\/notes-on-vigilant-sharing\/\">vigilant sharing<\/a>\u201d had proven itself a winner.<\/p>\n<p>When did our\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/abandonedfootnotes.blogspot.com\/2010\/07\/footnotes-on-things-ive-been-reading_21.html\">first egalitarian revolution<\/a>\u00a0occur? Nobody knows, as yet. Some experts posit it could be as far back as when we came down from the trees, others place it into our\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/leavingbabylon.wordpress.com\/2014\/11\/27\/our-true-history\/\"><em>sapiens<\/em>timeline<\/a>. The oldest known wooden, fire-hardened spears come from about 300-400,000 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ready for the\u00a0revolution? Once aggrandizers are given an inch of leeway under favorable resource conditions, they quickly stretch that inch into a mile and keep on going. \u2014 Brian Hayden Once upon a time, there lived the ancestral apes that gave rise to humans, chimpanzees and bonobos. In all likelihood, they lived in bands dominated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4537,2602,1686,685],"class_list":["post-6991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-egalitarianism","tag-evolution","tag-humans","tag-revolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6992,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions\/6992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}