Episode · Dwarkesh Podcast · 2025-03-12
Books mentioned on Joseph Henrich — Humans defeated smarter species with cultural evolution
Humans have not succeeded because of our raw intelligence. Marooned European explorers regularly starved to death in areas where foragers thrived for 1000s of years.
Dwarkesh Patel discussed The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich and The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Secret of Our Success
The Secret of Our Success by Joseph Henrich explores how human cultural evolution and cooperation, rather than raw individual intelligence alone, drove our species to dominate the globe.
Discussed“Today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Joseph Henrich, who is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and an author of two of my favorite books, The Weirdest People in the World and before that, The Secret of Our Success.”
Where to get it
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The WEIRDest People in the World
The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich is an anthropological and psychological exploration of how Western populations became psychologically unique compared to the rest of the world.
Discussed“Today, I have the pleasure of chatting with Joseph Henrich, who is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and an author of two of my favorite books, The Weirdest People in the World and before that, The Secret of Our Success.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (3) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Plugged The Secret of Our Success
“Well the way I describe it in The Secret is that it’s a package of things.”
Plugged The Secret of Our Success
“So the case I make in Secret is that, say, three million years ago, two million years ago, there were several factors that came together.”
Plugged The WEIRDest People in the World
“In WEIRD, I use the exact same data- I actually get the data from him- to show that you have this increase in patience.”