Short interview with Mark Pagel in The Guardian

The Guardian “Mark Pagel: culture is central to human success”

I thought it was interesting how Pagel took on the “culture as parasite” idea pretty directly: we are far too dependent on culture for it to be parasitizing us, although culture probably does lead to the sacrifice of the ‘good of the individual’ for the ‘good of the group’.

Also fascinating is the question of how culture causes us to constantly expand our exploitation of resources, a tendency that has allowed us to push the biophysical limits of the earth’s ability to provide us with these resources. How we use culture will determine whether we can be a sustainable species.