Oddbean new post about login | logout Tradeoffs, or matter of degree. There's a reason why some food animals are farmed and others are left in the wild. For example cows versus deer, who never stop fighting for freedom when trapped. You can't domesticate a deer. Humans are more like cows.
I agree with this. I think my only disagreement is whether it’s a flaw or a feature with tradeoffs. What I mean is if we didn’t have this characteristic I’m not sure we’d still be humans.
Seems the idea is that if people were more like deer, perhaps they would be too unruly to establish a civilization. But deer do commune amongst each other, learn from each other, etc. In contrast, I think the conquests of history can be thought of as a timeline of humans being domesticated into farmability.