Ultrasocial

* Book: Ultrasocial: The Evolution of Human Nature and the Quest for a Sustainable Future. by John M. Gowdy. Cambridge University Press, 2021)

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Description

1.

"Ultrasocial argues that rather than environmental destruction and extreme inequality being due to human nature, they are the result of the adoption of agriculture by our ancestors. Human economy has become an ultrasocial superorganism (similar to an ant or termite colony), with the requirements of superorganism taking precedence over the individuals within it. Human society is now an autonomous, highly integrated network of technologies, institutions, and belief systems dedicated to the expansion of economic production. Recognizing this allows a radically new interpretation of free market and neoliberal ideology which - far from advocating personal freedom - leads to sacrificing the well-being of individuals for the benefit of the global market. Ultrasocial is a fascinating exploration of what this means for the future direction of the humanity: can we forge a better, more egalitarian, and sustainable future by changing this socio-economic - and ultimately destructive - path? Gowdy explores how this might be achieved."

2. Peter Turchin:

‘The evolutionary economist John Gowdy has written a grand narrative tracing how over thousands of years the global human society has become complex, stratified, and interconnected, turning into a vast self-regulating superorganism. And now this superorganism has fallen prey to the ideological virus of neoliberalism, which subordinates the well-being of individuals to the needs of the global market. Ultimately, Ultrasocial is a scathing indictment of neoliberal ideology and market fundamentalism from the evolutionary point of view.’

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Discussion

The Superorganism: "It's not an organism; its a self-organizing system with no self. Its just this system that came together to function and perpetuate itself through time."

- John Gowdy [3]

Nate Hagens: "There is no hive mind in human societies. The superorganism is not like a Star Trek borg with a higher collective intelligence; its more like a body where individual humans are akin to individual cells in a body. The Superorganism story is we self-organized, after climate stabilized, to maximize surplus, which led to division of labor, storing of surplus, population growth explosion. Fast forward 10,000 years or so, and we found fossil carbon, which boosted our fuel and supply further. Fast forward another couple hundred years, and we're no longer optimizing for surplus - we're optimizing for surplus markers, like financial claims on our surplus. The whole thing is out of control - there is no one in charge. Its no one's fault, its an emergent property of so many humans pursuing their individual goals under an overarching goal of economic growth and financial maximization."

Rejecting the Global Superorganism

"From Nate Hagens paper on "Economics for the Future: Beyond the Superorganism"

Highlights

• We lack a cohesive map on how behavior, economy, and the environment interconnect.

• Global human society is functioning as an energy dissipating superorganism.

• Climate change is but one of many symptoms emergent from this growth dynamic.

• Culturally, this “Superorganism” doesn’t need to be the destiny of Homo sapiens.

• A systems economics can inform the ‘reconstruction’ after financial recalibration."

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919310067#bib0335)