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re: Communism and primate behavior
Tom Brosz — (archived)

My admittedly amateur opinion has always been that the glory and tragedy of human nature has been the evolution of a brain that uses reason and individual thought as a survival mechanism, installed in an animal with strong tribal primate instincts.

The human animal, like many (not all) primates, seems to have a strong desire to be either Alpha Ape or Flunky Ape. Humans do not seem to be comfortable unless they are either the boss, or working for one. A good circumstantial fact in support of this is that there are damn few if any libertarian societies, but human government, even on small scales, seems to fall into totalitarianism/monarchy at the drop of a hat.

One wonders what would have happened if we had evolved from a more solitary animal. Something like the orangutan, maybe. An animal tuned to individualism a lot more than current human beings are.

I always thought that the basic secret of human nature and history would have been revealed if you could have locked Ayn Rand and Jane Goodall in a house for a year.

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