> species that were already highly sociable and live naturally, gregariously, and peacefully in groups of dozens or even hundreds.
And if you have a source stating authoritatively how society functioned seven million years ago, as we parted evolutionary ways with the baboons and chimpanzees, I would love to read it.
How about it? I spend lots of time in cities; they are generally peaceful, gregarious and friendly.
> if you have a source stating authoritatively how society functioned seven million years ago, as we parted evolutionary ways with the baboons and chimpanzees, I would love to read it.
What is your point here?
Which ones?
> What is your point here?
I live in a city of almost nine million. Which far exceeds such a population, and not of proto-humans, but of fully modern ones (assuming the Toba Catastrophe Theory[0] is correct). As such, it's a pretty good bet that those few thousand who survived such a bottleneck 50-75k years ago lived similar lives (albeit with less technology) as we do today.
And while we do have some issues with anti-social behavior (which, I'm sure, is present in your village on a much smaller scale -- and only because it's a much smaller population) in my city of almost nine million, on the whole people are cooperative, supportive and pro-social.
If you don't like cities, that's fine -- don't live in one. But while Dunbar's Number[1] isn't applicable in my city, for the most part, we live pretty good lives.
I take issue with "peacefully".
Hunter gatherer adult violent death rates are often estimated at 2% to 10% (googling seems to confirm my memory here). While people in developed countries have around 0.01% violent death rates.
We evolved, beginning seven million years ago, from species that were already highly sociable and live naturally, gregariously, and peacefully in groups of dozens or even hundreds. Chaos and sociopathy are illnesses.
On top of that, we have the intelligence to reason about what works better (let's use it).