Are hunter-gatherers happier than people in modern society? Has all of our material progress led to a genuine improvement in well-being, or is something amiss? These questions lie at the core of the meaning crisis, and more broadly, the metacrisis—a series of interrelated challenges facing civilization today. Evolutionary anthropologist Dr. Vivek Venkataraman joins us to examine the lives of both prehistoric and contemporary hunter-gatherers, shedding light on the trade-offs that accompanied humanity's transition to larger and more complex societies.

Drawing from his extensive experience living with and studying the Batek people of Malaysia—a modern hunter-gatherer community—Dr. Venkataraman helps us explore the contrasts in work-life balance, social relationships, mating dynamics, cultural values, and collective decision-making between their way of life and modern civilization. The discussion ultimately probes whether the course of human history was inevitable, shaped by game-theory dynamics/incentives, and considers what lessons we might learn from hunter-gatherer societies to address the challenges of our present and future.

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Dr. Vivek Venkataraman

https://www.vivekvenkataraman.com/

https://x.com/vivek_vasi?lang=en