Let's not be Geese

Nature is f-ing amazing. I was watching one of those nature shows recently that told how eagles have evolved to hunt geese in Canada. The first step is to wait. The eagles simply hang around until late in the season when the lakes the geese rest on begin to dry out, so the geese become highly concentrated. The second step is to dive-bomb the geese. This causes a panic, and the geese turn on each other in trying to escape the eagles. The unlucky geese who get hurt during the panic end up with injuries like broken wings. Only then do the eagles flutter down and claim their prey. But these eagles did not always hunt this way. This hunting strategy started thousands of years ago with one lazy bird who developed a habit of not chasing every goose it ran across. It conserved it’s energy, waited for better hunting conditions, ate more, and was healthier than the other eagles. It then had more opportunity to help produce additional eagles with that “lazy” habit until that hunting strategy became part of the genetic make-up of all eagles in that area. So if it weren’t for that one lazy-ass eagle acting differently than the others, modern eagles might still be hunting using a less efficient hunting strategy and wasting precious energy. I bring up this scenario for two reasons. The first is to point out that doing something differently than everyone else should not always be seen as bad or wrong. And second, to demonstrate that when populations are dominated by fear, they can act in ways that ultimately hurt that population.

        Fear is a powerful emotion. Avoiding things that scare us is probably our species’ first and most effective survival strategy. But what humans are scared of can vary. We may be scared of something because we have had past experience with it. For example, people don’t like snakes or spiders because our ancestors have died from being bitten by them. But sometimes we are scared of something because we’ve had NO experience with it, so things that are unfamiliar can feel threatening as well. I think this reaction comes from living half of our lives in the DARK for thousands of years. As cave-dwellers, if we assumed there were things in the dark that could kill us (and there were,) we could avoid such situations or get prepared and be more likely to survive. So in order to increase our chances of living through those long dark nights, we banned together. We learned how to control fire. We moved into caves. Like the eagles, we eventually became efficient predators. But also like the geese, fear can still control our behavior.

I imagine that WAY back in the day, leaders’ orders were not debatable. Cave-dwellers did not have the luxury of time to decide whether or not they would do what a leader told them to do. Choices that meant life or death were probably made instantaneously under times of stress, and cave-dwellers with good leaders who did what they were told survived. But what made a good leader back then may not make the best leader today. Leaders back then held power because they were smart and forceful. Unless they are in tactical battle, evolved leaders don’t HAVE to use force or intimidation. And unless they are living under war-time conditions, most humans on Earth today don’t live in a state of imminent danger -- but we can be tricked into thinking we are. And the tool used most to trick us was invented only a few decades ago – the internet.

Like most tools, the internet can be used to help or hurt. How it is used depends on who is using it. But unlike a spear or a back-hoe, an individual person does not always know who is using the internet. Groups of people can send messages to individuals they are trying to influence pretty much anonymously, so there is little accountability. These messages are sent instantaneously to one’s phone, tablet or computer and can be pretty appealing for the typical person with a cave-dweller brain. The displays are shiny. They flash. Links to new information often move across our screens so we track them as if we were hunting for food. Then once we are hooked, the messages can stimulate fear. Catastrophes involving weather, economic collapse or human atrocities – very few of which actually affect our daily lives. But our cave-dweller brains want to know about them. We want to be prepared for any threats. But who would benefit from such manipulative behavior?  What group would purposely want to put people in a constant state of fear? Groups who want to control the behavior of others. People who want power. The most obvious example would be political parties and the leaders they are promoting.

Now before Mulder and Scully burst in with their flashlights drawn, let’s back things up a bit. OK, a lot. When I refer to power, I don’t mean old white men in suits sitting around a table heaped with money rubbing their hands together, laughing. I mean a combination of unconscious and learned habits that motivate certain humans to control more resources. Back in the day, leaders who controlled the most resources held the most power. Resources like water, food, safe shelter and the occasional weapon; but the most important resource was other people. More followers meant more power. That’s basically still true for political parties, today, and it appears that the political powers that be are using some VERY old tactics to get their constituents to behave like geese. But I doubt political leaders are always aware of their manipulative behavior. They have teams of people who are telling them these fear tactics work, and it’s through trial and error that these strategies have been “discovered.” But I’d like to think that since we are humans and not birds, we have the ability to stop and think about how we might be reacting to a simple, unsolicited message from an “anonymous” source. We are more evolved than that. Let’s not be geese. 

References  

                                                                                                                           
Koenig, S. (2017). How Social Media Exploits Our Moral Emotions.

Nautilus. http://nautil.us/blog/how-social-media-exploits-our-moral-emotions                                                                                                                                                           
Shermer, M. (2017). How to Convince Someone When Facts Fail. Scientific American, Behavior & Society. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-convince-someone-when-facts-fail/

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