Recording intelligenceAI-generated brief · check the source for context

Agustín Fuentes — This Species Moment

51:06 recording · AUTO · 2 speakers

Listen to the original

Listen to the episode

Brief overview

Fuentes argues humans are deeply social, cooperative ecosystems, and that rethinking evolution could reshape economies, trust and care.

  1. The human niche is social through and throughFuentes says humans are never really alone: even at rest the brain's default state is the social one, and our bodies, hormones and guts are tied to being with others.
  2. Cooperation and competition are not oppositesHe calls the split a false dichotomy and says that for humans the best cooperators make the best competitors, with the data from primates and human evolution behind it.
  3. Trust is predictability, reliability and compassionRather than convincing people to have faith in you, trust is demonstrated behaviour, and he points to political debate in New Zealand as one imperfect attempt at it.
Executive Summary AI
  • Anthropologist Agustin Fuentes tells Krista Tippett that 2020 is a multi-species moment, because humans navigate it in partnership with another species, the virus SARS-CoV-2, inside a world humans largely made.5:20
  • He lays out the human niche: our niche is social through and through, the resting default state of the brain is the social one, and a fish is born expecting water while a human is born expecting culture, which is why pandemic distancing damages bodies and minds, not just moods.10:24
  • He rejects the competition-versus-cooperation binary as a false dichotomy, arguing that for humans the best cooperators make the best competitors, and that on average those who spent all their time hitting people over the head did not do very well.20:21
  • Applying that to economics, he and Tippett discuss his line that we willingly accept losses as often as gains in exchanges, because for most humans exchanges are about making and keeping social connections rather than profit, which undercuts the rational-actor basis of modern economic theory.26:32
  • He closes on wisdom as the capacity to take knowledge and experience and do something with it, ties it to hope and to the elders COVID-19 is harming, and proposes love economics aimed at reducing inequity and suffering rather than maximising financial benefit.40:38
Key Quote
“The first thing I'd say is it's a multi-species moment that this year, 2020, I'm going to talk mostly about humans, but I can't initiate this conversation without nodding to the fact that we've partnered with another species, this virus, SARS-CoV-2.”
— Agustin Fuentes5:20
Key Quote
“The psychologist Michael Tomasello says this great phrase, fish is born expecting water, a human is born expecting culture.”
— Agustin Fuentes11:26
Key Quote
“our bodies and our minds are being damaged by not being around other people, not touching other people.”
— Agustin Fuentes12:29