2026-03-20
19 分钟What do you think I should say to my future son about the world
that he's growing up in, in terms of the mismatch between our evolution and... his natural hardwiring?
Wow, what a great question.
So there is something called the mismatch hypothesis in evolutionary theory,
which basically says that many problems that we face today arise out of a mismatch of a phenomenon
that was adaptive in our ancestral past, but is no longer adaptive in our contemporary modern world.
Classic example to stick to food.
We've evolved the gustatory preferences as a response to caloric scarcity and caloric uncertainty.
Therefore, being attracted to fatty foods, gorging on a lot of food makes perfect evolutionary sense
when we don't know when our next meal is coming from.
When we live in an environment of plentitude... then that exact phenomenon becomes maladaptive.
So if you look at, for example, I think the top eight
or nine killers on the World Health Organization thing, they can all be attributed to the mismatch hypothesis.
So I would tell your son, Knowledge is power, to our earlier point of you getting that degree.
You never lose in knowing more.
You being aware of the mismatch hypothesis, dear son,
will allow you to hopefully not fall as easily into behavioral traps.
And what are the most important,
because you have a book here called Happiness, Eight Secrets for Leading the Good Life.
If I was to give him advice on how to live a happy life.