Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

In the year 2056

New Scientist asks: What will be the biggest breakthrough of the next 50 years?

Geoffrey Miller answers:

Applied evolutionary psychology should revolutionise life in three ways by 2056. First, Darwinian critiques of runaway consumer capitalism should undermine the social and sexual appeal of conspicuous consumption. Absurdly wasteful display will become less popular once people comprehend its origins in sexual selection, and its pathetic unreliability as a signal of individual merit or virtue.

Second, studies of human happiness informed by evolution will reveal ever more clearly the importance of “social capital” – neighbourliness, close-knit communities, local family support, and integration between kids, adults and the elderly. This will, I hope, lead to revolutionary changes in urban planning, leading to a New Urbanist revival of mixed-use landscapes. Enlightened citizens will demand to live in village-type spaces rather than alienating suburbs of single-family isolation and unbearable commutes.

Third, evolutionary moral psychology will reveal the social conditions under which human moral virtues flourish. The US will follow the UK in realising that religion is not a prerequisite for ordinary human decency. Thus, science will kill religion – not by reason challenging faith, but by offering a more practical, universal and rewarding moral framework for human interaction. A naturalistic moral philosophy will replace the rotting fictions of theological ethics. In these three ways, applied evolutionary psychology will help Enlightenment humanism fulfil its long-stalled potential to make us all brighter, wiser, happier and kinder.

s/will/ought to/ for a more reasonable way to think about that.

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