Cooperation, community, and a sense of adventure may be the keys to our survival, even in these violently divided times.
That was the theme of Athena Aktipis’ address last week. The Arizona State University psychology professor offered the guidance as part of a Harvard Science Book Talk conversation about her newly published book, “A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: A Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times.”
We seem to be living in an extraordinarily tumultuous moment of global outbreaks of deadly viruses, a dangerously warming planet, and coming economic and social displacement of technologies, including AI. But, Akiptis said, crises are nothing new to the human race. In fact, we are constantly managing risk. The dilemma is that often the solution isn’t clear-cut.
Akiptis presented the hypothetical case of the “goosile.” A suspicious blob appears on the radar of a mission control professional assessing attack threats. It could be a missile, which should be shot down. Or it could be a harmless goose (hence the mash-up neologism). What do you do?
“The problem is that the world is filled with ambiguity,” explained Aktipis. “Either you correctly identify more missiles but have more goose false alarms, or you correctly reject more geese, but miss some missiles.”
In other words, there may be no “right” answer, and that means more stress.
“The bottom line in managing our stress in these apocalyptic times … is gathering information so you can figure out what you actually do and don’t need to be stressed about,” said Aktipis, co-director of the Human Generosity Project and the Cooperation Science Network.
Taking principles from psychology and evolutionary biology, Aktipis has created an accessible and actionable framework. The first step is to look “at a potential threat from multiple perspectives.” Then, “attendto all of your senses when assessing a threat.” Third, reach outside yourself: “Find as many dimensions of information as you can.” That leads to her next suggested action: “Talk to people who have different knowledge than you do.” And finally, “Know when to stop gathering information.” You may need to move on — or take action. “Don’t get stuck in a risk-assessment loop,” she said.
Instead, she stressed, we must learn to live with risk.
“Thanks to the recent pandemic, many of us are likely accustomed to being miserable a considerable amount of time, even when we’re not facing the red-hot heat of an active apocalypse,” said Aktipis. “We put up with having a life that is often painful, boring, or some combination of the two.”
Changing this mindset can actually make us better prepared, letting us build up “apocalyptic sustenance.”
It may help to change priorities.
“I’m not saying that we shouldn’t work hard, just that we should work hard on things that we’re actively deciding to do because they are important. And ideally also what would be kind of fun,” she continued. “We should reawaken that childlike part of us that is curious and likes amusement and then work hard on something that feeds that inner child with something delightfully playful.”
“A Field Guide to the Apocalypse” contains multiple outlines and suggestions for how to make this possible. One example is CHESS, an acronym for incorporating “Curiosity, Humor, Entertaining, Storytelling, and Socializing” into our lives.
Emphasizing the last S, Aktipis said: “The connections that we’ve forged through these social events can form the basis of mutual aid relationships that can come in handy during real catastrophes.”
Apocalypses come in many forms. Drawing on the original Greek definition, an apocalypse was “revelation of the underlying risk in the world and in our lives,” she said: “Rather than thinking of it as the end of the world, it’s an opportunity for us to learn and understand what the world really is like,and that can help us be better prepared and adapt as things are changing.”
Another key is not seeing survival or success as a zero-sum game. That thinking leads to the belief that “we all have to fight over the pie.” Instead, she suggested, “We can work together to make a bigger pie and share it.”
Utilizing game and cooperation theories, she laid out the work of the transdisciplinary Human Generosity Project, beginning with the Maasai people in Kenya, who have a traditional system called Osotua.
Literally translating to “invisible umbilical cord” (according to theOsotua Foundation), this social system assumes members of a group will give when asked, as long as long as they can help “without going below what they themselves need,” with no expectation of return, Aktipis explained.
“The only expectation is that they would be recipients of the same kind of help if they needed it in the future.”
This, she said, is similar to many of our own friendship and family bonds. Indeed, research in Fiji, Mongolia, and ranchers in the Southwest confirmed the universality of such “social insurance” bonds.
“Across all of these societies, people are managing risk through their social interactions, often through these need-based transfers.
“Theres a lot of potential to change the way we handle risk collectively,” said Aktipis.
To drive home her points — and, perhaps, to build a little community among the crowd in Science Center A — she invited bluegrass guitarist Forest Thurman to join her as she brought out her ukelele to lead the audience in simple, tuneful singalongs with lines like “Life ain’t a prison/it’s a pie.”
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