Rutger Bregman
speaker
273 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard May 2025
Rutger Bregman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Because we have these huge brains that take up, what is it, 20, 25% of our energy. But then, you know, scientists started studying other animals. And again, as you just said, they're pretty similar to us in many respects. There's now a new group of scientists who think that what has made us special as a species is something called survival of the friendliest.
It's really the case that throughout our history, it was actually the friendliest among us who had the biggest chance of passing on their genes to the next generation. Because that basically helped people to work together on a scale that no other animal has been able to do. Now, the technical term for this is self-domestication syndrome. We know this with animals that we have domesticated, right?
Seep and dogs, they've turned very friendly. And what Charles Darwin already noted is that these domesticated animals have certain traits in common. You know, you can see that it's in their genetic profile, but they also get like these floppy ears or white spots in their fur. And most importantly, they look a little bit more childlike and they also become more playful.
Now, what's so interesting, if you study the skeletons of humans over the past thousands of years, what you see is the popification of humanity. So we literally look much friendlier, more childish than we look 50,000 years ago. Humans have become cuter over time. Exactly, exactly. So... This is my grand theory of human nature. I call it homo puppy.
That's the term I hope to be remembered for in the annals of science. But it's very much contrary to the way people often think about how we have conquered the globe, right? That we murdered all the Neanderthals or something like that. Well, actually, modern scientists think pretty much the opposite. So I believe that theory.
You've got a picture of him on... Of course! ...near your bed or something.
Hmm. So often people say, oh, becoming a parent really made me more idealistic because, you know, that was the moment when I realized that we really need to take care of future generations. You know, actually, quite often I see the opposite is that people, I don't know, maybe turn inward a little bit. So I've been actually trying to fight that. Oh, but you feel it, though. It's pulling you then.
I think it's fine. You know, this discussion really reminds me of this news story from, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago when a Danish woman was arrested in the US because she had parked her stroller with, I think, her baby in it next to a cafe while she was getting takeaway coffee. And she was arrested for child neglect.
While in Denmark, where she's from, you know, that's like entirely normal to do. I mean, that's life.
Yeah, and important that it's in the interest of those in power for us to be cynical about human nature, right? Because that justifies the hierarchy, that justifies all these power differences.
You know, as I was going on a book tour, making this argument that humans have evolved to work together and that we are the product of survival of the friendliest, what really struck me is that I got most pushback from journalists And I think it's logical. I mean, journalists spend most of their careers, their days, writing about what goes wrong, right?
So people who actually are more tuned into the news, who are addicted to the news, they're often much more cynical. And I got most praise, actually. I received a lot of emails from hitchhikers. There's this one, I forgot his name, this guy who is the professional hitchhiker. He's been really going everywhere. And he's like, yeah, that's my experience. You can go everywhere.
You can go every country. And people are basically friendly to strangers pretty much everywhere. And I was like, well, that is lived experience, right? That is very different from the journalist mindset where you continuously are on the lookout for newsworthy things. It's a problem with the goodness, right? As Trevor said, it's the water we swim in.
It's very easy to miss because you're just used to it. And by the way, one final thing. I had a pretty different experience actually moving to New York. Yeah. I mean, I like my neighbors in the Netherlands, but in the Netherlands, right, our social circle is much more closed off. But I, you know, I moved here to Brooklyn and everyone's so friendly. Everyone's so kind.
Everyone's like, no, welcoming to the neighborhood. Like my neighbor literally said, yeah, you can have sleepovers. You invite people, you know, in my apartment. It's all fine. So I don't know. Maybe that's just Brooklyn. But my experience was pretty different.
Be a man, be heterosexual. It works incredibly well. So yeah, you're absolutely right. And part of me wonders this as well. As I think about this book I wrote, Humankind, is it just one big expression of privilege? Is it a telling fact that I wrote that book?
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with all of that.
Yeah, absolutely.
My favorite story in the book is about this moment in 1965 when six boys shipwrecked on an island near Tonga. I had asked myself the question if there had ever been a real Lord of the Flies. And it turns out there was. Six boys were at this boarding school in Nuku'alofa, the capital of Tonga. They were really frustrated. They thought school was boring. And they were like, let's go on an adventure.
And they borrowed a boat from a local fisherman and then ended up in a storm on the very first night. They drifted for eight days, incredibly hungry, incredibly thirsty, but miraculously survived and then washed up on this island that was totally forgotten, uninhabited. And they survived there for 15 months.
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