rant · moment 16 of 20

Tribalism, Wired for Conflict, and Nice Guys Online

from Subsistence Hustlers · #21

Audio-only archive episode — no video to seek.

3 min

Tim theorizes people are primally wired for tribal conflict and that online activists preaching compassion are often monstrous in private, while conservative-seeming people are often perfectly nice in person.

In this bit8 moments
  • 59:21People thrive on conflict because it organizes the chaos in a way they understand.
  • 59:35Tim argues humans are wired for conflict the same way ancient people fought over goat meat.
  • 1:00:04Society is a construct that took thousands of years to civilize people and stop them from taking whatever they want.
  • 1:00:33Middle class jobs and post-war suburban stability were constructions that kept people contained in stasis.
  • 1:00:58Tim recalls a Greyhound bus encounter where someone told a woman to shut up her barking chihuahua—direct and honest.
  • 1:01:23Tim says he misses crack houses despite not missing drug addiction, because there was clarity in that binary existence.
  • 1:01:48Story about calling a drug dealer nicknamed Buckshot at a pay phone and accidentally using the wrong name.
  • 1:02:14There's something appealing about people who are just dumb and don't care what anyone thinks.
Mentioned here

GrummanDonald Trump

All 20 moments in this episode →