We were pack hunters and lived in societies way before evolving into modern humans.
Right! Has no one paid attention to chimpanzees, baboons, or other primates? Recognizing those like yourself and working together is baked in. Even in species that are even farther away from us, in an evolution sense, we see cooperation.
Modern technological human history is only about a hundred years … we were cavemen and acting like scared children for about 50,000 years before and like frightened monkeys for 2 million years before that … we may have landed on the moon but we are closer to our ancient ancestors than to any futuristic highly evolved human society.
We’re more like cavemen with nuclear weapons.
No.
This is a load of shit. Why it has up votes blows my mind.
Do some reading or watching of hunter gatherer societies and you’ll see lots of group survival activities. Teamwork in hunts, in preserving food, in crafting tools, and making shelter.
If we were this self-centered, we wouldn’t have such advanced communication, which is how we were able to do all those group activities.
Survival of the fittest is survival of those that cooperate.
Why it has up votes blows my mind.
Because it’s funny? Honestly why your comment is so highly upvoted is blowing my mind, although I mean you no ill-will by that.
Its part of the lemmy meta-game at this point is to take a joke super seriously and go on a psudo-intellectual rant about how the contents of the joke are the sum of everything wrong with humanity. Everyone needs their 5 minutes on the high horse
I agree, this is a load of shit. How do we know cavemen communicate in “good enough English” for us to understand?
It’s a comic about cavemen. It can be entertaining and interesting without being a complete representation of early human society. That said afaik there is evidence people in prehistory killed each other a lot.
And yet it’s a load of crap. Why defend it? Because you’re butthurt that someone could be correct about something and that displeases Your Highness?
I kind of read it more as the cavemen slowly coming to realize that they are both better off with mutual co-operation rather than that they are better off by simply being greedy, because the risk of the greed was too big. It was in their best self-interest to work with one another, i.e. they were both self-centered, and were still able to co-operate. Sort of some selfish gene type stuff, I guess.
It’s so funny to me (in the positive way!) that your comment actually transforms this comic into a piece of art by giving it a social commentary (and by interpreting its meaning). And by making it art, you basically give the best counterpoint against “it’s not historically accurate” .
How is the one with the meat better off? He should have just merc’d the asshole that showed up demanding shit from him.
Survival of the fittest is survival of those that cooperate
The question nobody ever asks about survival of the fittest is what actually makes someone fit to survive?
That for nature to decide!
Today: Be faster than your prey!
Tomorrow: Have endothermic heat regulation so that you survive the asteroid impact that’s going to blot out the sun!
I don’t doubt that some small (or not?) percentage of the population do think and act and vote this way.
The rest of us allow them to exist and breed and it will be the end of our species eventually.
It’s not genetics that makes people selfish. The genes for cooperation exist universally. Competition has a cultural origin. For example, antisocial personality disorder, in which a person lacks the usual behaviours of community building, is caused by child abuse. On a larger scale, competitive behaviour is usually caused by capitalism.
They went from threatening to kill each other to sharing food, then contemplating trading more food in promise of later trades. This is a message of progress and cooperation. Extrapolating this forward, I have no doubt that this is the groundwork for the teamwork you describe. Any hesitancy along the way seems like no big deal to me.
It’s normal for males, even in social species, to bully food from members weaker than them. Sharing food is a sign of accepting a lower status and avoiding conflict.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
This comic has 20 panels.
Find me a five minute long joke or a feature length movie with only one joke in it.
It shouldn’t take 20 panels to tell a joke.
I don’t think they told “a joke”, nor intended to. This was a humorous exchange as well as a commentary on human nature. My day is better for having read it.
Bill Watterson is one of the greatest comic artists ever, and even he said (paraphrased) “I enjoy a funny conversation more than just one punchline”.
Another great person, Empricorn said “let people enjoy what they like”.
It shouldn’t take 20 panels to tell a joke.
Seems like it’s not telling a joke, but instead making a statement about Humanity.
These are the types that went on to work for wall street.