Why do humans compete?
Human beings are truly magnificent, and just as animalistic in nature. See, sometimes we disregard our very own competitive nature. In this article, I’m going to dive into dimensions of the unconscious mind, hidden motives in everyday life and why we do what we do. This article is a quick summary of the “Elephant in The Brain” by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson, who remarkably portrayed humans’ driving nature, and that’s what I’ll be focusing on today’s article. Enjoy.
Competition.
To dive into the deep explanation for what competition is, let’s examine what it was, to our ancestors. The most distinctive feature that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, would probably be our intelligence. Relative to our body size, we have unusually large brains. Consider these 2 reasons which can explain why our brains grew so large and quickly over thousands of years. (See the Fig 1below)
- Ecological challenges such as warding off predators, hunting big game, domesticating fire, finding new food sources and adapting to new climates.
- Social challenges such as competition for mates, jockeying for social status, coalition politics (alliances, betrayals, etc.), intragroup violence, cheating, and deception. These activities pit humans against each other and are therefore destructive for a functioning society.
One might think that the reason for our rapid brain volume growth lies in the ecological challenges, because we would prefer to assume that humans got together as a society to fight through the dangers of harsh world. But, as uneasy as it sounds, the keys to our intelligence lies in the cruel social challenges, the winner-take-all arena in which one’s personal gain is another’s complete loss. Ever questioned, say, why do we enjoy watching Formula 1, UFC, football, playing video games? As long as it’s playful no one gets harmed, right? What’s actually harder to acknowledge are the ones we won’t admit to others: sexual jealousy, status rivalry against friends, power struggles within a marriage, the temptation to cheat, politics in the workplace and more.
How Redwoods, tree species compete.
Redwoods are the world’s tallest trees, the tallest being 379 feet (115 meters) , historically 122 meters— any taller and a tree can’t get water from its roots to its topmost leaves. A tree can’t just ask the Genie for a wish and grow this tall instantly — it takes a lot of energy to grow upward and remain tall against harsh weather. So why bother? As mentioned in the “The Elephant in The Brain”, it depends on the species. Other species do it to protect their leaves, disperse their seeds more effectively, and fight for sunlight, a scarce and critical energy for all trees. Often, though, a species’ most important competitor is itself — even as a redwood you still have to worry about getting enough sun. Thus, the redwood is locked in a “height-race” with itself. If it doesn’t grow as much as its competitors, it will literally die in the shadows of its rivals.
Now consider the human being. Like the redwood our species has a distinctive feature as I mentioned above: our intelligence. If we were to compete our intelligence with other species, say, a dog, it would seem unnecessary. Like the redwood, we are competing against our own species. Instead of sunlight, we have been competing for territory, sex, money and social status.
Sex
One might think surviving was about who was the strongest, but it actually had a lot more reference to reproduction. Every woman who wants to mate with a high-quality man has to compete with all the other women, while every man who wants to mate with a woman has to be chosen by her, ahead of all his rivals.
Social status
Social status is defined as one’s stance or rank in different social groups. It’s a measure of respect and influence. The higher your rank, the better you get treated and being looked up to. I’d like to mention an episode from Black Mirror series on Netflix, called “Nosedive”. The storyline is about a woman, Lacie, who was depicted in a world where everyone had a rank out of 5, referring to someone’s socioeconomic status. Keep in mind that this rank would determine every aspect of your life — opportunities, workplace, house, your friend groups and more. If you fit the norms of society, then you’d be eligible to succeed in a world where everyone is striving for a better score, thus better social status. Our plot continues to fall into the traps of what she think she could make her happy — high status, while completely disregarding what actually makes her happy, losing touch with reality.
There are two ways to the top: dominance and prestige. Dominance is the result of competition, while prestige is all about respect. We earn prestige not just through power and money, but also by being funny, smart, relatable and kind. Our competitions for prestige often result in art, science and technological and societal advancements. Dominance, on the other hand, is the result of competition, which can be destructive.
Politics
Like humans, animals like chimps have a political stance in their groups. They organize themselves into dominance hierarchy, from the strongest on top and weakest on the bottom, where stronger chimps bully the bottom ones in order to get access to better food, mates and various opportunities. However, no male ape can survive by himself, he needs others to cooperate as well. You need to be savvy enough to retain good allies. However, politics can get as nasty as winning tactics that include threats, betrayals, deceptions. It wouldn’t be fair to think of politics only as dreadful ; since it’s also about winning people’s affections freely through valuable companionship. Ultimately, though, it is the same drive — wanting to win at life’s various competitions.
Conclusion:
There’s no way to avoid that life’s a big chess game — we are obligated to make strategic decisions to climb up the socioeconomic ladder. Despite the possibilities of everyone getting the same amount of pies, our nature and instincts simply can’t embrace it. All of these competitions result in rivalry — just as the redwoods competing for light from the sun, we’re competing for the “light” of attention and affection from potential mates, friends, and allies; each competition resulting in a zero-sum game, in which one’s win is other’s complete loss.
