Firstly, humans did not always survive in a world that is as predictable as the one we grew up in. We were hunter-gatherers for millions of years before agriculture and civilizations, where food security was not predictable. Then why did we evolve now to behaviorally resist change and crave predictability? If we could survive in uncertain environments for millions of years, why do minor changes / discomforts upset us so today in a planet that we have practically colonized? We have to explore our evolutionary history and the mechanisms we created to survive in our hunter-gatherer times to find the answer. Unlike specialised creatures (e.g., koalas, can only eat eucalyptus leaves), humans evolved in the Pleistocene, an era marked by rapid, chaotic climate shifts . Paradoxically, in these chaotic times, predictability was the ultimate, life-saving prize . Any mechanism that helped our ancestors secure predictable outcomes or minimize exposure to the unknown was favored by nat...
In My Radical Opinion