Humankind: A Hopeful History

Humankind presents the "optimistic" view of humanity. We are not all greedy cutthroats out to get personal gain at everybody else's expense. Instead, we tend to work together to benefit mankind. The author appeared to initially side with the "greedy" hypothesis until he dug deeper into some of the big cases.

It turns out that many key psychological studies and anecdotes were filled with flaws. There was the story of the lady that was killed in the stairwell as the neighbors looked on and did nothing. This received significant press coverage. However, the press wanted their narrative and ignored the contradictory accounts. The neighbors did call the police. The police just thought it was a minor domestic violence incident and didn't come. A neighbor was even cradling her as she died. The press, however, didn't want to contradict the established narrative by talking to these people. The bystander effect tends to be positive rather than negative. There was another example given of many Dutch jumping into freezing water to save a woman and child they did not know. It required all working together to quickly save them.

The "Stanford Police study" was a famous study where some students were cops and others were prisoners. The prisoners were brutally attacked by the in-power police. Power begat cruelty. Or at least so it seems. In actually, the "police" were egged on and encouraged to be brutal to get the bold results desired. Similarly, there was another study that showed people willing to give a possibly fatal shock to an anonymous person when they missed a question. This was seen to show people were cruel. Digging deeper, it turns out that this "shock killers" were cajoled to give shocks "in the name of science". People thought they were doing something for the greater good. Others felt it was impossible that a study would let people die.

Interestingly the author does have bad words to say about empathy. That can make us make bad decisions. In one example, if people are know about a person on the waiting list for an organ transplant, they are more likely to move them up - even though that person is no more needy than the other. Empathy ends up distorting the natural altruistic behavior. Instead, it is more beneficial to feel compassion. We should try to understand how people feel in order to help them, but not try to feel as they do.

Trusting the "goodness" of men goes against the grain in our modern world. We have carrot and stick systems. The "carrots" of capitalism have seen to won out. However, these can distract from true motivation. Examples are given of schools that focus on letting kids learn what they want as well as companies that eschew management to let the employees do their work. (The Dutch "leader" of the company does anything but lead - and that is what makes the company so efficient. Management often justifies their existence by introducing complexity rather than producing.) If we trust the goodness of people and internal motivation, we can depend on them to do good work even without bribing them with bonuses and internal prestige. One type of study has reproduced this "Pygmalion" effect by arbitrarily dividing mice or people into "good" and "Bad" groups. Those running the study know the group of each participant, and because of this, the "good" are more likely to succeed than the "bad".

We can make a positive experience by contracting the "bad" with "good". Turning the other cheek actually works. Examples are given of the Norwegian prison system. It treats prisoners with respect and helps integrate them in society. The recidivism rate is much lower. There was also the example of a person that treated his wood-be mugger to dinner. They enjoyed the time, and he got his wallet back, and gave the mugger a meal and $20. Even when analyzing large scale protest movements, it was found that peaceful ones are more likely to succeed than violent ones (despite the likelihood of violent protests to gain more coverage.) Nelson Mandela succeeded in South Africa in part from his willingness to work with the other side and even speak their language. It is hard to fight against somebody that you know. (There were other examples of Columbia helping to combat FARC by encouraging them to return home to Mom and of World War I troops celebrating Christmas with the enemy - much to the chagrin of their leaders.) 

People want to be good. They often have to have "badness" forced upon them. Many troops fail to fire their weapons. Hand to hand combat is even more challenging. They need to dehumanize the enemy to fight. However, they may be fighting for a higher cause. If a group of troops has a strong bond together, they are likely to fight hard for each other. Similarly, the best way to get people to do evil things is to convince them that what they are doing is good. People want to do good and need to be "tricked" to do otherwise.