Update: New Normal?

The episode examines whether human nature is fixed by exploring a baboon troop that shifted from hyper-aggression to cooperation after a tuberculosis outbreak killed off its most aggressive males. It presents self-domestication theory, suggesting humans may have evolved to be less violent through social selection against aggression. A philosophical anecdote about shifting social norms frames the possibility of rapid cultural change.

It offers a compelling biological case that human aggression is not inevitable and that cooperation can become dominant through social and evolutionary pressures.

1. 01A baboon troop studied by Robert Sapolsky underwent lasting behavioral change toward cooperation after a disease selectively killed its most aggressive males.
2. 02Self-domestication theory posits that humans evolved reduced aggression through social mechanisms like ostracism or execution of violent individuals.
3. 03Cultural norms can shift rapidly, as illustrated by a 1966 anecdote where a racist remark was neither commonplace nor intolerable, but caught in transition.