Can Books Help Us Better Understand Human Behavior and Social Divisions? > Likes and Comments

Hello everyone,

I'd like to start a discussion inspired by Prejudice, Racism, and Tribalism: A Primer for White People by Anthony M. D'Agostino.

The book explores how prejudice, tribalism, and social identity have influenced human behavior throughout history and continue to shape interactions today. It raises thought-provoking questions about why people identify so strongly with groups and how those divisions can affect communication, decision-making, and society as a whole.

Whether you've read this book or similar works, I'm interested in your perspective. Do you think books that examine complex social issues can help readers better understand the challenges facing our communities today? Have you come across another nonfiction title that encouraged you to rethink your assumptions or consider a different point of view?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and having a respectful discussion.

I completely agree that books like this can encourage readers to reflect on difficult topics and challenge long-held assumptions. Thoughtful nonfiction often opens the door to conversations that might not happen otherwise.

One book that gave me a similar feeling is Extinction or Evolution? by Adam Altamery. Instead of focusing on social identity, it explores the relationship between AI and humanity, raising important questions about ethics, decision-making, and the kind of future we're creating. It definitely made me think beyond the technology itself and consider its broader impact on society.

I think books can absolutely help us understand human behaviour—but only if they ask difficult questions instead of trying to provide comfortable answers.

One thing I've noticed is that many books about AI eventually stop being about AI. They become books about *us*. AI simply acts as a mirror, forcing us to confront questions about consciousness, identity, tribalism, morality, and what it actually means to be human.

History shows that humans naturally divide into groups—whether those groups are based on nationality, religion, politics, or even scientific beliefs. AI may become the next catalyst that either deepens those divisions or helps us transcend them, depending on how we choose to build and use it.

That's one of the reasons I enjoy speculative fiction. It allows us to explore today's ethical and social questions from a distance, making them easier to examine without immediately falling into ideological debates.

As both a reader and a writer of AI-focused science fiction, I've become increasingly interested in stories that ask not just *"What will AI become?"* but *"What will humanity become because of AI?"* To me, that's the more enduring question.

Soren's line about books that start as AI books and end as books about us feels right to me.

The machine is often the easy character. The harder part is what people do with a useful answer: who they stop asking, which group they join, which neighbor they stop trusting. Tribalism does not need a superintelligence. A sorting tool in a school, a clinic, or a comment section is already enough.

I do not think the useful question is what AI will become in some far year. It is who we let it stand in for today, and whether we still keep a person in the room when the answer comes back too clean.