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Evolutionary Psychology & Pronatalism with Dr. Geoffrey Miller
In this thought-provoking episode, Malcolm and Simone sit down with Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychologist and author, to discuss the complex interplay between evolutionary instincts, modern technology, and pronatalism. Geoffrey shares insights on how evolved drives for social status and relationships can be short-circuited by digital distractions, leading to reduced fertility. The conversation delves into the potential paths forward for humanity, including traditionalist and cognitive strategies, the role of moral disgust in shaping technophobic conservatism, and the challenges of raising children in a rapidly changing world. They also explore the pronatalist potential of polyamory, the risks and benefits of genetic engineering, and the ethical considerations surrounding AI development and human enhancement.
Geoffrey Miller: [00:00:00] polyamory can be a legitimate way to run your relationships so the antinatalist version of polyamory would be, you should simply be maximizing your sexual network and your sexual pleasure and your little highly open minded adventures and, and, you know, organizing your, your gangbangs and threesomes and going to Burning Man and, and having kids as sort of secondary.
And then there's a pronatalist version of polyamory that says, Hey, why don't you consider maybe a group living situation, which might make it easier to raise kids collectively with your little trusted polycule, right?
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: Hello. This is Malcolm and Simone. We are here with a special guest today, Jeffrey Miller. We actually had his partner on in one of the early episodes a couple of times. Yeah. Name again. Sorry. I'm Diana. Diana Fleishman. Diana Fleishman. Yes. And He, I've respected him since [00:01:00] before we wrote our sexuality book on like sexuality and human evolution because this is a topic that he is both an expert on and the type of outspoken expert that gets him in trouble with university departments and stuff at times which is of course the experts who we like talking to most.
fun topic for this episode because you know, Diana has also been, you know, a core leader in the pronatalist movement in terms of pronatalist thought and stuff like that. And, and so if you I don't know if it's an extension of that, but, but in addition to that is to apply your deep understanding of the evolutionary conditions that sort of led to modern human sexuality and how those are interacting with.
This new environment that we're in with, with ways that they can be shorted out and how that might lead to changes in humanity going forwards. So go,
Geoffrey Miller: yeah, I work in this field called evolutionary psychology and we try to understand human nature and we do it through mostly applying evolutionary biology [00:02:00] theory.
To human prehistory and trying to analyze the challenges that our ancestors faced in terms of surviving and reproducing and raising kids and living in groups, right? So that's my kind of framework. A key insight, I think, from evolutionary psychology is we did not really evolve directly to try to maximize baby count, right?
To try to maximize fitness in a direct way. Instead what we did through thousands of generations. Of ancestral history was do the things that tended statistically to lead to babies. Even though we might not be consciously maximizing number of offspring or building a dynasty or whatever, right? So what tends to lead to babies being sexually attracted to good high quality partners, falling in love with them, [00:03:00] developing relationships with them, right?
All of that stuff tends to lead to babies. What's another thing that tends to lead to babies ancestrally? Achieving social status, right? And prestige and influence and being valued in your group. Now the problem is you can short circuit both of those. You can fall in love, hav
Published on 1 year, 8 months ago