[wille92]

Whenever I read about tribal communities coming into modernity, I can't help but think that our "first-world" culture gets a lot wrong. These communities seem to have a deep sense of narrative--you're a part of a greater cultural story, a spiritual story that's connected with place, nature, and family. There is a journey laid out for you rich with sacrament (e.g. the rite of passage to become an Inuit hunter in this article). I can't help but feel that the modern world has lost this purposeful way of life. In the modern world, we're really left up to our own devices to figure out where we fit in and what we find meaningful. Would love to hear other's thoughts.

[squeaky-clean]

I recently read Sapiens by Yuval Harari, and this is a recurring theme in the book. "Collective fictions" throughout human history, the different forms of these myths, and how they help a society grow, or need to change as one does grow.

One sort of related example is local religions versus universal, missionary religions. The majority of religions in history have been local and exclusive. Deities such as nature/animal spirits and the like, other tribes may have their own spirits in their own regions, and there is no need to convert people outside of your regions. But the most successful religions are ones are universal and missionary; they believe that their religion is affects everyone, regardless of whether they believe it (and is often the only true religion), and that for some reason, it is beneficial to convert others to your religion.

Ideas like money, capitalism, art, really anything not essential to the biology of humans, are such "fictions", and the most successful (from any evolutionary standpoint) societies are the ones that have or adapt the most effective "fictions" for their societies. I guess to put it in HN terms, "how scalable are your beliefs?"

A lot of the old ways we've lost touch with, or never had, aren't helpful to modern society. A hunting trip in which you become a man doesn't amount to much in a society with mega-farms, slaughter mills and processed foods that don't expire immediately. Instead, our equivalent goals would be like "get a degree, get another degree, get a job". You're an adult when you're old enough to vote, and so on.

There's a lot of other topics as well, but that's what stuck with me the most and my interpretation of it. It's fascinating to think about.

[mikhailfranco]

The Romans conquered many peoples with different local myths, but they incorporated them into the empire by mapping the local deities to their Olympian canon, forming joint entities as targets of worship and devotion. This seems to be a tolerant and scalable approach, given a universe of various polytheisms based on nature, which helps ensure a viable mapping exists.

Monotheism has a lot to answer for. It began with Judaism, which has a certain exclusivity, but does not take the missionary position of universal adoption and conversion. It is surely the descendants, Christianity and Islam, where the polarizing missionary zeal of crusade and jihad has caused a lot of trouble. While many religions practice ostracism for the non-believer, only Islam insists on death to the apostate, who is seen as a traitor by definition, even without any further subversive or mutinous action.

Unfortunately, the doctrinaire and totalitarian proselytizing religions seem to have been quite scalable and successful. The Reformation and the Enlightenment have successfully turned back the tide of Catholicism in the West, but the challenge to Islam has yet to really get started.

Given the exploding demographics of the relevant parts of south Asia, Middle East and Africa, that future struggle gets harder by the hour. Indeed, it is the intensive demographic success of the subjugation of women and the rejection of contraception that has propelled these expansive conquering religions through history. It seems very likely that Japan and Russia will decline in population (no immigration), Europe will be Islamized and North America will be (re-)Hispanized with Catholicism.

The Reformed and Enlightened might have liberated themselves into an evolutionary dead-end of personal choice, free from enslavement by community propaganda and intimidation, but ultimately just a fleeting moment of liberty before the incoming tide of ruthless and fertile monotheists.

[wille92]

The idea of efficient and scalable myths is interesting. Haven't heard of Sapiens but I'll definitely check it out. It's especially interesting in the context of this article--transitioning out of a local, exclusive belief system to a "scalable", universal culture must be very difficult for these Greenland villagers.

[ihsw]

That's the idea -- that society is rigid whereas this one is open. Some people can't handle the openness, they just want somewhere to fit into.

Setting aside predictable culture clash, the fundamental issue is misaligned standards and expectations. Some communities need strong male leaders that everybody can orbit around, and there are none. They're all just trying to help people get by when there's more to life than just surviving -- it's about wanting more.

[erikpukinskis]

I agree. But I don't think it's "tribes" exactly that create the effect, it's sustainable subsistence living within a community. You will find a few people doing a variation of it in every bioregion on the planet. I just came across this[1] video about Satayama, a Japanese village. They're not eating whale blubber, They're eating gourmet food and living in designer homes in paradise basically. Someone pointed me at Sepp Holzer the other day who is doing it in Austria[2]. There's a good chance someone is living that way within 100 miles of you.

What's interesting to me is that I believe we are less than a decade away from a time when AIs will be able to instruct you, step by step, how to live sustainably on just your own power, with maybe $1000 worth of financing and access to a tool lending network.

At that point a lot of "rules" of economics start to break down.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcpdi1geXuI

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GMXqgQIU9c

[AndrewKemendo]

It's all made up.

You either let someone else make up the story or you make one up for yourself.

[eli_gottlieb]

Know any "greater cultural stories" that don't involve obviously false claims about the supernatural, obvious structural oppression of entire categories of people, or obvious rationalization of exploitative power structures?

[mmckelvy]

Wholeheartedly agree.