Group Mind pt. 3: Oxytocin Atrocities

Explicit content warning

01/20/21 • 87 min

We use religious cults as an example of extreme group psychology to make generalizations about the group dynamics that determine sociopolitical possibility. We investigate the relationship between ingroup cohesion and outgroup animosity, the oxytocin-laden war rituals of chimpanzees, the unique human developmental biology associated with social cognition, and the general neurobiology of the repetitive group dynamics we encounter.

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Heal Like An Animal: Interview with Joshua Sylvae pt. 1

Joshua Sylvae practices and teaches Somatic Experiencing, an approach to trauma recovery based on a cross-species understanding of behavior and its evolutionary foundations. Proceeding from the observation that many species routinely encounter mortal peril without long-term traumatization, SE facilitates the innate recovery processes that our culture of restraint impedes, placing an emphasis on the embodied aspects of the trauma response. In this episode, Joshua describes the SE paradigm and helps us establish a foundation for an understanding of how our sociopolitical structures create and maintain trauma, and how our trauma creates and maintains our sociopolitical structures. For more information about Joshua's work see: https://sylvae.net/

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Aggression, Specialization, Dysregulation, and Power pt. 1 (preview)

Unlock the entire episode at https://www.patreon.com/biologicalsingularity
The year is 2050, and I have been making this podcast for 30 years. In this episode, I continue with the themes first developed in the Biology of the Right-Left Divide, using the revolutions of the mid-2030s to illustrate how social conditions amplify innate differences. We focus on two ways the social-technological trajectory is changing us: specialization (i.e. the development of hyper-competence in some domains at the expense of any competence in others) and behavioral changes resulting from alterations to the brain's reward circuitry, a consequence of living among so many easy, compulsive pleasures. We build a foundation for examining how these two types of change interact with the biology of aggression, and thus determine the nature of human dominance hierarchies.