[PoachedSausage]

I often wonder if it is true that human nature is unchanging. The proposal comes up often in political debates, but there is not really the place to have an informed discussion about human nature.

It seems to me that human nature has changed quite a lot in the last few hundred years. Examples would be the change in how we view other humans, slavery is regarded as barbaric now, we have the declaration of human rights and equality for women and people of different sexuality etc.

[jshevek]

If we accept the definition "fundamental dispositions and traits of humans" then I wouldn't consider those examples to qualify, as they are not sufficiently fundamental in my view. They are closer to social norms. If we experienced a wholesale global economic collapse, I could easily see our great-grandchildren retuning to those and other barbaric norms.

[Groxx]

Just to join in: since it's "human nature", I think it's reasonable to consider only things which are relatively universal / innate, not learned things like social norms.

2,000 years is very little time on a genetic timescale, I wouldn't expect to see many changes. Some, sure, but not much.

[close04]

But that's education and society that can steer the human nature, rather than human nature itself. And the proof is in the fact that slavery, human rights violations (even with support from the law and society), gender and sexual discrimination are still very much alive even in countries that ostensibly have a more forward thinking.

If you take a number of modern humans and put them in a Bronze Age setting you will get Bronze Age humans. Our genetics stayed pretty much the same and education just reigns in and steer our human nature.

[marcosdumay]

The spectrum reached by "human nature" is probably very similar to what it was 2000 years ago. The actual occurrence of each possible value of it seems to change widely just in a few centuries; some times in decades.

[AlgorithmicTime]

Those are technological changes. Once technology made slavery obsolete, it was banned. Once technology meant women could be as productive as men, and could control reproduction at will, they were given equality.