Our Social Roots: Conflict Between Collectivist and Solitary Predators
Predators choosing to live and fight as a pack comes at a price, but the collective is always stronger than the individual.
Note: this is a chapter in my ongoing series The Great War Between Collectivism and Globalism. See the other chapters listed below (updated as I post them). For additional context, read my post about the rise of fascism in the USA. Since that article, I’ve adjusted my argument, referring to the 21st Century revolution as globalist in nature, rather than traditional fascism.
Introduction and Synopsis
Our Social Roots: Conflict Between Collectivist and Solitary Predators
Gender Roles: The First Distribution of Labor, and the Most Important One
Women’s Emancipation and Feminist Counter-Revolution
Lone predators are by necessity cautious creatures. Attacking prey is dangerous, and even a small injury can be fatal for the predator. For example, a wounded leg will prevent the predator from being able to chase down prey and he’ll starve to death. Even consuming too much energy can be lethal. Predators must constantly assess the cost/benefit ratio of their pursuits. That’s why a large predator will often ignore small game unless he believes it will take little effort to catch. There’s no point in a hunt that burns more calories than it offers in return. Furthermore, it must also be remembered that predators in the wild don’t have refrigerators. Even large prey like antelope are still one meal. Leftover meat goes to waste.
That said, hunters who live and operate in collectives are much more aggressive than lone predators. As individuals, pack animals are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the community. Hyenas are particularly vicious and suicidally brave. Everyone else in that ecosystem avoids confrontations with hyenas and for good reason.
Due to the natural scarcity of food, lone predators can be much larger and stronger than competing packs, but collectives easily make up for this disadvantage through bravery and tactics. Note that the very idea of group tactics only works if individuals are willing to die. If solitary predators, like tigers for example, decided to form a pack, they wouldn’t get anywhere. None of the participating tigers would be willing to risk death, injury, or even fatigue. Operating as a collective would be counterproductive for tigers. Nobody would be willing to attack. If a tiger “won” the fight but was injured, or merely exhausted in the process, all he succeeded in doing was give the other tigers a free meal at his expense.
The competition between lone predators and packs has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, and packs have won every battle. In times of natural disaster, packs have a better chance of overcoming obstacles. A pack that is whittled down to a few individuals still has a chance of surviving. They don’t need to eat much individually and can spread out for better odds of finding food.
Even a pack that loses too many members and drops below the genetically required minimum number of mating pairs can still find another pack of the same species and intermingle with them. Lone predators, even predators of the same species, like tigers, can’t intermingle anywhere to the same extent because they’re mutual competitors. A large lone predator simply runs out of food and dies. As he gets weaker, there’s a good chance he’ll end up getting eaten by a pack.
While some internet memes claim that animal collectives like wolves go to great lengths to take care of the sick and elderly, there is no factual basis for this. Collectives don’t harm themselves protecting weakened individuals. When a wolf is injured or becomes ill, he dies. In a collective, individuals willingly sacrifice themselves for the common good. That’s why collectives are so strong and always win.
Pack animals have yet another advantage; intelligence. Natural selection isn’t completely random. After a species has committed to a certain social dynamic, they’ll further enhance traits that benefit their society. High intelligence is mostly useless to lone predators. There’s nothing to be gained from it after a certain point. For collectives, higher intelligence begets a higher level of socialization and improves the pack’s ability to problem solve.
The Human Collective
Humans don’t make much sense. If evolution was a conscious barter, it’s foolish to trade claws for poseable thumbs or speed for endurance. Humans are fleshy meat sacks with engorged brains and hearts. These organs produce so much heat, humans even had to sacrifice protective hides and fur. The concept of endurance running makes no sense. A solitary predator should never under any circumstances spend hours chasing down food. A fully-grown deer or antelope still only provides one meal.
But humans aren’t solitary predators. Humans live and work as collectives. Intelligence, endurance, and poseable thumbs are huge advantages for a group of people working together. Human weaknesses that would cripple an individual don’t matter because people don’t live as individuals. That deer is only one meal, which is fine when there are fifty humans to divide it. On top of that, a group of humans can find practical uses for every single part of the deer; nothing goes to waste. A lack of protective fur doesn’t matter when a human community can make clothes.
At some point along the way, humans reached yet another milestone, and one of the greatest of them all; language. Thanks to institutional knowledge passed on by oral traditions and later written word, humans no longer depend on instinct. All skills can be taught. Thanks to language, humans are born knowing absolutely nothing and don’t suffer for it.
Collective intelligence eventually became so powerful it transcended species. Human and canine hierarchies intermingled, with humans becoming the “alphas” for dogs to follow. This is extremely unusual, it’s close to unheard of. Humans view most other species as slaves and domestication confirms this perception. Over generations of artificial selection, domesticated animals become slow, fat, and stupid. After a certain level of domestication, animals are no longer capable of surviving on their own. For example, sheep do not ever stop growing wool. They would die without their human masters.
Dogs are one of the few exceptions to the exploitative nature of domestication. They’re lower in the hierarchy, but they’re not slaves. As abundance of food eliminated the need for humans to devour everything in sight, dogs were the first foreign species that people became uncomfortable with eating. Nonetheless, people will eat dogs if circumstances become desperate enough. Dogs also engage in cannibalism, so in the human-dog social contract, dogs don’t object to being eaten. Now let’s not take that too literally. Yes, an individual dog dislikes being eaten, but dogs as a population understand why this is necessary sometimes. Likewise, if a human dies his dogs will eat him. Yet those same dogs can find other humans and carry on as normal.
Ian Kummer
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Dammit, here you go again, making grand declarations that are incorrect. You REALLY need to do more research for your essays. Examples of errors:
“Even large prey like antelope are still one meal. Leftover meat goes to waste.”
False. Mountain lions eat their fill, then cover the carcass with loose foliage, returning after they’ve digested their first meal. That’s why one of the rules of living and working in the forest is: “If you come across a partly eaten carcass, get the hell out of there as fast as you can.”
“That said, hunters who live and operate in collectives are much more aggressive than lone predators.”
What do you mean by “aggressive”? Yes, a pack of wolves will attack a larger animal than a mountain lion would attack. But from the point of view of a deer, mountain lions are every bit as aggressive as wolves.
“As individuals, pack animals are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the community.”
Not quite. You’re describing something called “kin altruism”. Here’s where you can read up on the basics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection
It’s not the community that they’re risking themselves for, it’s the family. And they don’t sacrifice themselves: we don’t see wolves deliberately sacrificing themselves. Instead, they are willing to take greater risks. Even then, the risks wolves take are nowhere near close to suicidal.
“Due to the natural scarcity of food, lone predators can be much larger and stronger than competing packs, but collectives easily make up for this disadvantage through bravery and tactics.”
If this were true, then the net biomass of wolves in an ecosystem would be greater than the net biomass of single predators in that ecosystem. I’ve never seen any data to support this requirement. I quail at the use of “bravery” to describe predatory behavior. And the tactics used by feline predators are every bit as sophisticated as those used by canine predators.
Which reminds me: I suggest that you think in terms of felids, which are solitary hunters (except for lions), and canids, which are pack hunters. Moreover, there are a great many differences in behavior based on environmental factors. Canids do poorly in dense jungle environments because the density of foliage makes pack tactics ineffective. Felids are more successful in dense foliage or broken terrain that supports the stalking techniques upon which they rely.
“Note that the very idea of group tactics only works if individuals are willing to die.”
Again, be careful here. I know of no observations of canids deliberately sacrificing themselves to the benefit of the pack. They take risks, but not suicidal risks. We do see suicidal sacrifice among insects, but not canids.
“If solitary predators, like tigers for example, decided to form a pack, they wouldn’t get anywhere.”
So what? If wolves decided to become herbivores, they’d fail, too. An animal is optimized for a particular set of behaviors.
“The competition between lone predators and packs has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, and packs have won every battle.”
Totally false, for several reasons. First, pack hunting is a more recent development than you suggest, as it requires the development of social reasoning modules. For example, the evolutionary line of wolves goes back only about 300,000 years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_wolf
Earth has seen four major steps in predation. The first step was ambush hunting, which remains common among reptiles. The second step was stalking hunting, which we see only in mammals and likely developed in the Paleogene period. The third step was pack hunting, and the fourth step was “smart pack hunting” as practiced by Homo sapiens. But the full story is really complicated. Here’s an introduction to the concepts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pack_hunter
If your claim were correct, we’d have seen lone hunters replaced by pack hunters. The fact that lone hunters are successful, and more successful than pack hunters in some environments, demonstrates that your claim is wrong.
“…can still find another pack of the same species and intermingle with them.”
No, intermingling is not common among pack hunters. Small packs are killed off by large packs.
“Lone predators, even predators of the same species, like tigers, can’t intermingle anywhere to the same extent because they’re mutual competitors.”
Nor do they enjoy any benefit from doing so. They’re quite successful working the way they do.
“In a collective, individuals willingly sacrifice themselves for the common good. That’s why collectives are so strong and always win.”
WHAT collectives? Certainly not canid packs.
“High intelligence is mostly useless to lone predators.”
False, false, false. Learn about the concept of mental modules. Social mammals have lots of social intelligence. Solitary predators, such as felids, develop other forms of intelligence. Read about the encephalization quotient; here are the basics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3207484/
“The concept of endurance running makes no sense.”
…to somebody who doesn’t know how early humans hunted.
To summarize, I urge you to spend time reading about evolution in general, and human evolution in particular.
Heads up – links are great, but please share them one link per comment, otherwise they get scooped up by my spam filter. This blog is tiny and been active for only a couple months, but you would be amazed how much spam I get.
At some point I want to have less discriminatory spam filters (so it’s not beating up regular commenters like yourself), but it will probably be a bit before that happens.
“False. Mountain lions eat their fill, then cover the carcass with loose foliage, returning after they’ve digested their first meal. That’s why one of the rules of living and working in the forest is: “If you come across a partly eaten carcass, get the hell out of there as fast as you can.”
And apparently this is a fairly common tactic among predators. I’m going to have to post an update in the article about this. Thanks!
“What do you mean by “aggressive”? Yes, a pack of wolves will attack a larger animal than a mountain lion would attack. But from the point of view of a deer, mountain lions are every bit as aggressive as wolves.”
From the perspective of the “Martian Scientist.”
“It’s not the community that they’re risking themselves for, it’s the family.”
You are REALLY splitting hairs here.
“If this were true, then the net biomass of wolves in an ecosystem would be greater than the net biomass of single predators in that ecosystem. I’ve never seen any data to support this requirement. I quail at the use of “bravery” to describe predatory behavior. And the tactics used by feline predators are every bit as sophisticated as those used by canine predators.”
I don’t disagree with this statement, and never indicated I did, so I’ll move on.
“Which reminds me: I suggest that you think in terms of felids, which are solitary hunters (except for lions), and canids, which are pack hunters. Moreover, there are a great many differences in behavior based on environmental factors. Canids do poorly in dense jungle environments because the density of foliage makes pack tactics ineffective. Felids are more successful in dense foliage or broken terrain that supports the stalking techniques upon which they rely.”
This is an excellent point.
“Again, be careful here. I know of no observations of canids deliberately sacrificing themselves to the benefit of the pack. They take risks, but not suicidal risks. We do see suicidal sacrifice among insects, but not canids.”
The same can be said for humans. I never argued otherwise. Human soldiers are scientifically proven to still value self preservation above all else, and it is virtually impossible to break that habit. At least with men. That’s thought for later.
“So what? If wolves decided to become herbivores, they’d fail, too. An animal is optimized for a particular set of behaviors.”
Which is exactly what I said. Verbatim, actually.
“The competition between lone predators and packs has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, and packs have won every battle.”
“If your claim were correct, we’d have seen lone hunters replaced by pack hunters. The fact that lone hunters are successful, and more successful than pack hunters in some environments, demonstrates that your claim is wrong.”
I never said one was generally more successful than the other. In fact, I was extremely clear that one isn’t more successful than the other.
“No, intermingling is not common among pack hunters. Small packs are killed off by large packs.”
Intermingling happens, and often enough to have a noticeable genetic impact. Incidentally, I didn’t specify how often it happens, only that it’s possible.
“Nor do they enjoy any benefit from doing so. They’re quite successful working the way they do.”
This is what I said verbatim: “Natural selection isn’t completely random. After a species has committed to a certain social dynamic, they’ll further enhance traits that benefit their society.”
“WHAT collectives? Certainly not canid packs.”
ALL collectives. There is not one species on Earth where the whole will harm itself for the sake of the individual. Not even humans. If you are aware of an exception, please share it.
“False, false, false. Learn about the concept of mental modules. Social mammals have lots of social intelligence. Solitary predators, such as felids, develop other forms of intelligence. Read about the encephalization quotient; here are the basics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3207484/”
True true true true. Herd and pack animals are almost invariably the top most intelligent animals on earth.
“…to somebody who doesn’t know how early humans hunted.”
That was a rhetorical statement, and an extremely obvious one.
“To summarize, I urge you to spend time reading about evolution in general, and human evolution in particular.”
All I aimed to do here is provide some background and context for my collectivism vs. globalism series – which I apparently succeeded since you don’t seem to dispute the larger theme I’m pushing, but rather details, like the longetivity of corpses (and I do appreciate bringing that up, incidentally), or the distinction between suicidal and risky.
Dammit, here you go again, making grand declarations that are incorrect. You REALLY need to do more research for your essays. Examples of errors: "Even large prey like antelope are still one meal. Leftover meat goes to waste." False. Mountain lions eat their fill, then cover the carcass with loose foliage, returning after they've digested their first meal. That's why one of the rules of living and working in the forest is: "If you come across a partly eaten carcass, get the hell out of there as fast as you can." "That said, hunters who live and operate in collectives are much more aggressive than lone predators." What do you mean by "aggressive"? Yes, a pack of wolves will attack a larger animal than a mountain lion would attack. But from the point of view of a deer, mountain lions are every bit as aggressive as wolves. "As individuals, pack animals are willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the community." Not quite. You're describing something called "kin altruism". Here's where you can read up on the basics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection It's not the community that they're risking themselves for, it's the family. And they don't sacrifice themselves: we don't see wolves deliberately sacrificing themselves. Instead, they are willing to take greater risks. Even then, the risks wolves take are nowhere near close to suicidal. "Due to the natural scarcity of food, lone predators can be much larger and stronger than competing packs, but collectives easily make up for this disadvantage through bravery and tactics." If this were true, then the net biomass of wolves in an ecosystem would be greater than the net biomass of single predators in that ecosystem. I've never seen any data to support this requirement. I quail at the use of "bravery" to describe predatory behavior. And the tactics used by feline predators are every bit as sophisticated as those used by canine predators. Which reminds me: I suggest that you think in terms of felids, which are solitary hunters (except for lions), and canids, which are pack hunters. Moreover, there are a great many differences in behavior based on environmental factors. Canids do poorly in dense jungle environments because the density of foliage makes pack tactics ineffective. Felids are more successful in dense foliage or broken terrain that supports the stalking techniques upon which they rely. "Note that the very idea of group tactics only works if individuals are willing to die." Again, be careful here. I know of no observations of canids deliberately sacrificing themselves to the benefit of the pack. They take risks, but not suicidal risks. We do see suicidal sacrifice among insects, but not canids. "If solitary predators, like tigers for example, decided to form a pack, they wouldn’t get anywhere." So what? If wolves decided to become herbivores, they'd fail, too. An animal is optimized for a particular set of behaviors. "The competition between lone predators and packs has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, and packs have won every battle." Totally false, for several reasons. First, pack hunting is a more recent development than you suggest, as it requires the development of social reasoning modules. For example, the evolutionary line of wolves goes back only about 300,000 years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_wolf Earth has seen four major steps in predation. The first step was ambush hunting, which remains common among reptiles. The second step was stalking hunting, which we see only in mammals and likely developed in the Paleogene period. The third step was pack hunting, and the fourth step was "smart pack hunting" as practiced by Homo sapiens. But the full story is really complicated. Here's an introduction to the concepts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pack_hunter If your claim were correct, we'd have seen lone hunters replaced by pack hunters. The fact that lone hunters ar
Heads up – links are great, but please share them one link per comment, otherwise they get scooped up by my spam filter. This blog is tiny and been active for only a couple months, but you would be amazed how much spam I get. At some point I want to have less discriminatory spam filters (so it's not beating up regular commenters like yourself), but it will probably be a bit before that happens. "False. Mountain lions eat their fill, then cover the carcass with loose foliage, returning after they’ve digested their first meal. That’s why one of the rules of living and working in the forest is: “If you come across a partly eaten carcass, get the hell out of there as fast as you can.” And apparently this is a fairly common tactic among predators. I'm going to have to post an update in the article about this. Thanks! "What do you mean by “aggressive”? Yes, a pack of wolves will attack a larger animal than a mountain lion would attack. But from the point of view of a deer, mountain lions are every bit as aggressive as wolves." From the perspective of the "Martian Scientist." "It’s not the community that they’re risking themselves for, it’s the family." You are REALLY splitting hairs here. "If this were true, then the net biomass of wolves in an ecosystem would be greater than the net biomass of single predators in that ecosystem. I’ve never seen any data to support this requirement. I quail at the use of “bravery” to describe predatory behavior. And the tactics used by feline predators are every bit as sophisticated as those used by canine predators." I don't disagree with this statement, and never indicated I did, so I'll move on. "Which reminds me: I suggest that you think in terms of felids, which are solitary hunters (except for lions), and canids, which are pack hunters. Moreover, there are a great many differences in behavior based on environmental factors. Canids do poorly in dense jungle environments because the density of foliage makes pack tactics ineffective. Felids are more successful in dense foliage or broken terrain that supports the stalking techniques upon which they rely." This is an excellent point. "Again, be careful here. I know of no observations of canids deliberately sacrificing themselves to the benefit of the pack. They take risks, but not suicidal risks. We do see suicidal sacrifice among insects, but not canids." The same can be said for humans. I never argued otherwise. Human soldiers are scientifically proven to still value self preservation above all else, and it is virtually impossible to break that habit. At least with men. That's thought for later. "So what? If wolves decided to become herbivores, they’d fail, too. An animal is optimized for a particular set of behaviors." Which is exactly what I said. Verbatim, actually. “The competition between lone predators and packs has gone on for hundreds of millions of years, and packs have won every battle." "If your claim were correct, we’d have seen lone hunters replaced by pack hunters. The fact that lone hunters are successful, and more successful than pack hunters in some environments, demonstrates that your claim is wrong." I never said one was generally more successful than the other. In fact, I was extremely clear that one isn't more successful than the other. "No, intermingling is not common among pack hunters. Small packs are killed off by large packs." Intermingling happens, and often enough to have a noticeable genetic impact. Incidentally, I didn't specify how often it happens, only that it's possible. "Nor do they enjoy any benefit from doing so. They’re quite successful working the way they do." This is what I said verbatim: "Natural selection isn’t completely random. After a species has committed to a certain social dynamic, they’ll further enhance traits that benefit their society." "WHAT collectives? Certainly not canid packs." ALL collectives. There is not one spec