The Social Leap Quotes

“Play to your strengths. There are many roads to happiness, but almost all of them are found by pursuing your particular strengths, which are likely to change over time. Change is intimidating for almost everyone, as it requires us to move from the known to the unknown, and hence from the predictable to the unpredictable. For this reason, many people remain too long with jobs or hobbies that once suited them but do not anymore. Just because you once loved something doesn’t mean you are destined to always feel that way. Your changing sources of happiness are probably telling you that your old life doesn’t suit you anymore. Seek the original source. Our modern world provides numerous opportunities for happiness that resemble but do not duplicate the original sources. Some are perfectly fine (e.g., TV and movies), some probably do more harm than good (e.g., alcohol, drugs, and junk food), but none is as good as the ancestral originals. Time with family and friends sits at the top of our species’ checklist and is our best recipe for happiness.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Prioritize food, friends, and sexual relationships. These three things are the basis of day-to-day happiness. Note that there is no mention here of money or freedom. There’s nothing wrong with having lots of cash and autonomy, but their pursuit shouldn’t interfere with opportunities to enjoy good food, sex, and friends. These three things are most likely to provide the happy experiences that accumulate into a life worth living. Cooperate. Working together with family, friends, and colleagues to achieve mutual goals is one of the most important sources of life satisfaction. Your achievements won’t make you permanently happier, but cooperation is inherently rewarding and provides a foundation for life satisfaction. Happiness doesn’t emerge only from leisure and fun, but also from work and productivity, particularly when you are satisfying your evolutionary imperative of cooperating with others. Not all the work we do is meaningful, as life has necessary drudgery, but working with people you trust and admire lightens the load.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“If you drop one of us naked and alone into the wilderness, you've just fed the creatures of the local forest. But if you drop one hundred of us naked into the wilderness, you've introduced a new top predator to this unfortunate stretch of woods.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“The contents of our mind are a product of our genes, our environment, and our personal choice. Our genes nudge us in certain directions—sometimes this nudge might more aptly be described as a shove—but we make the decisions that determine the trajectory of our lives.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Although we suffer from many of our ancestors' bad habits, they also evolved a motivational system that continues to reward us when we get it right. This is happiness.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Just because we got smarter doesn't mean we got any wiser.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“When children earn stickers or candies by working as a team, they withhold their goodies from children who didn't help but share with children who did. This might not seem very friendly—it might even seem like behavior you should correct: sharing is caring after all—but from an evolutionary standpoint, it's mission critical.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Our behavioral immune system evolved to ensure that such foreign practices seemed not just different to us, but also wrong.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“If we take the social brain hypothesis seriously, it suggests that IQ is a by-product of social intelligence rather than the other way around.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“When people feel that they cannot dominate their group and guarantee long-term advantage for themselves, the same psychology emerges, and preference for fair rules predominates.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“once we took the evolutionary pathway toward greater intelligence and a lifestyle that relies on learning rather than inborn knowledge, our genes had no choice but to relinquish much of their control.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“The contents of our mind are a product of our genes, our environment, and our personal choices.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Çayırlardan Google'a geçişimiz kuşkusuz epey şiddetli ve son derece verimsiz oldu, ama evrimin doğası da tam olarak böyledir. Bu dünyada devamlı olarak değişimler gerçekleşir ve hayat buna ya uyum sağlar ya da yok olur. Doğrusu, 66 milyon yıl önce devasa bir göktaşı Dünya gezegenini ıskalamış olsaydı insanlar muhtemelen evrimleşmezdi. Meksika Körfezi'ne çarpan ve küresel ateş fırtınalarına ve iklim değişikliğine yol açan bu uzay çöpü 100 milyon yıldan uzun bir süre boyunca gezegenimize hükmetmiş devasa avcıları ortadan kaldırmıştı.
Taş fırlatarak bir aslanı veya kılç dişli kaplanı savuşturabilirdik ama birçoğumuz bir araya gelsek ve en iyi şekilde işbirliği yapsak bile bir Tyrannosaurus rex'in çerezi olmaktan kurtulamazdık. Toplumsal sıçramamız parlak ve görünüşte öngörülü bir olaydı ama aynı zamanda gelişigüzel biçimde başımıza gelen uzun bir olaylar silsilesine de son derece bağımlıydı.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Karl Marx suggested that people should produce according to their abilities but share according to their needs, and this maxim describes hunter-gatherers reasonably well. But the history of communism suggests that agricultural people don’t share very well outside their family. The problem with the Marxist utopia is that people can free-ride on the efforts of others. If you are required to share with me, then I’m tempted to put in a little less effort because I know your hard work will leave me well fed. Once you see me slacking off, you don’t want to be a sucker, so you slack off a bit yourself, and pretty soon everyone is barely working. The free-rider problem is a vicious circle and can quickly destroy a productive community if there is no way to police everyone’s contribution.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Accumulate experiences, not stuff. The great times you have become a part of you; the great things you own gather dust or become trash. That said, if your memory for your lived experiences is as bad as mine, you might struggle to recall many of the great times you’ve had, and then find yourself at risk of owning nothing and remembering little. A simple solution to this problem is to take pictures, and even purchase the occasional doodad from your travels or adventures. By scattering these reminders around your home or office, you can relive your great times and laugh at the adventures that went awry. Prioritize”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Seek out sweet moments. It’s almost impossible to become permanently happier, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have more fun in your life. Achieving our evolutionary imperatives brings us positive emotions that range from contentment to great joy. We just need to be prepared for the fact that these feelings won’t last. But who wouldn’t opt for more frequent happy moments? Guard your happiness to stay healthy. Happiness is critical for physical health. If you are sacrificing your happiness for something that isn’t incredibly important, you should ask yourself how long this situation has lasted and how long it’s likely to last in the future. Short-term sacrifices can be sensible, but long-term sacrifices should be avoided if at all possible. If you must sacrifice your happiness to achieve other goals, try to prepare a time line and stick to it. Otherwise, you might wake up one day to find your short-term sacrifice has been going on for years, and your happiness and health are a thing of the past.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Cooperate. Working together with family, friends, and colleagues to achieve mutual goals is one of the most important sources of life satisfaction. Your achievements won’t make you permanently happier, but cooperation is inherently rewarding and provides a foundation for life satisfaction. Happiness doesn’t emerge only from leisure and fun, but also from work and productivity, particularly when you are satisfying your evolutionary imperative of cooperating with others. Not all the work we do is meaningful, as life has necessary drudgery, but working with people you trust and admire lightens the load. Embed yourself in community. Give careful thought to any decisions that require you to pull up roots and go somewhere else. We evolved to be curious, so new people and new places are forever enticing. But you don’t need to abandon old friends to meet new people and see new places. Even if you have a strong wanderlust, you should try to retain your connections to your community. Learn new things. Learning is a lifelong source of happiness, and play and storytelling are two important sources of learning. At all stages of life, from childhood to young adulthood through to midlife and old age, we enjoy mastering new things. If you choose your activities thoughtfully, you can enjoy the process of learning up to your last healthy days on this earth.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“your short-term sacrifice has been going on for years, and your happiness and health are a thing of the past. Accumulate experiences, not stuff. The great times you have become a part of you; the great things you own gather dust or become trash. That said, if your memory for your lived experiences is as bad as mine, you might struggle to recall many of the great times you’ve had, and then find yourself at risk of owning nothing and remembering little. A simple solution to this problem is to take pictures, and even purchase the occasional doodad from your travels or adventures. By scattering these reminders around your home or office, you can relive your great times and laugh at the adventures that went awry. Prioritize food, friends, and sexual relationships. These three things are the basis of day-to-day happiness. Note that there is no mention here of money or freedom. There’s nothing wrong with having lots of cash and autonomy, but their pursuit shouldn’t interfere with opportunities to enjoy good food, sex, and friends. These three things are most likely to provide the happy experiences that accumulate into a life worth living.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Stay present. Our proclivity to live in the future disrupts our ability to enjoy the present, particularly when the present provides unexpected pleasures. If you fail to find happiness in the pleasures of daily life, then a program of mindfulness or meditation might help you. Learning to live in the present might also reduce your stress levels if you tend to worry about the future. Keep in mind, however, that living in the now is a lot more difficult than it sounds, largely because you are trying to shut down one of the most important skills that evolution gave you in your capacity to plan for the future. Seek out sweet moments. It’s almost impossible to become permanently happier, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have more fun in your life. Achieving our evolutionary imperatives brings us positive emotions that range from contentment to great joy. We just need to be prepared for the fact that these feelings won’t last. But who wouldn’t opt for more frequent happy moments? Guard your happiness to stay healthy. Happiness is critical for physical health. If you are sacrificing your happiness for something that isn’t incredibly important, you should ask yourself how long this situation has lasted and how long it’s likely to last in the future. Short-term sacrifices can be sensible, but long-term sacrifices should be avoided if at all possible. If you must sacrifice your happiness to achieve other goals, try to prepare a time line and stick to it. Otherwise, you might wake up one day to find”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Of all the preferences that evolution gave us, I suspect the desire to share the contents of our minds played the single most important role in elevating us to the top of the food chain.* We are the fiercest predator on the planet by virtue of the power of our minds, but even human minds aren’t that special on their own.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“It was our capacity to learn from the experiences of others that gave Homo sapiens an enormous local advantage, with new strategies and innovations built on a platform of prior discoveries. As a consequence, each generation had no need to reinvent the wheel, and a child could acquire an understanding of the world that a few generations back would have been available only to geniuses.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“It’s easy to imagine a world in which genes have control over our minds, and for many animals they do. But once we took the evolutionary pathway toward greater intelligence and a lifestyle that relies on learning rather than inborn knowledge, our genes had no choice but to relinquish much of their control.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“People who have myopia genes and live in modern environments usually develop nearsightedness; people who have myopia genes but live as hunter-gatherers almost never do. So even effects that are largely genetic can at the same time be largely environmental.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Loss of trust matters because distrust leads people to disengage from their communities, reduce commitment to their workplace and lose the degree to which they share important information with each other. In short, without trust, people focus on self-protection and become unwilling to make themselves vulnerable. (...) People who lack trust are limited in what they can accomplish together.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy