637: Bill von Hippel | Where the Social Leap Lands

Mate Value

Bill von Hippel explores the concept of mate value and its impact on relationships. He explains that mate value can change over time, introducing potential conflicts in relationships as one partner's value shifts while the other's remains static. This dynamic is illustrated through a classroom exercise where students pair up based on perceived value, highlighting how changes in wealth or fame can affect personal relationships 1.

When your mate value changes across the course of your lifespan, it introduces potential wedge into relationships because usually, people partner up when they have similar mate values.

--- Bill von Hippel

Jordan Harbinger2 3.

   

Inequality Emergence

The transition from egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies to complex social structures marked the emergence of inequality. Bill von Hippel explains that in hunter-gatherer societies, resources were shared due to the constant threat of starvation, which fostered equality. However, as humans settled and began to store food, inequality emerged, evidenced by differences in housing and burial practices 4.

Inequality probably proceeded agriculture by about 20,000 years, and we know as it started to get increasingly so.

--- Bill von Hippel

The division of labor by sex also played a role, with men typically hunting and women gathering, reflecting the demands of parenting and survival strategies 5.