Survival of the Best Fit

During my elementary school career I had the rarefied experience of being picked last, or second to last, in gym class. Always. To a casual observer, this was probably confusing, but my classmates knew me well. I would duck when the ball came my way, and even if I managed to swing with all my might, I would miss.

But by my mid-twenties I had figured out that, while I was not naturally gifted with speed, I had enough mental fortitude to supply an army through a minor siege. Or to keep running, over mountains and hills, for hours on end. Long enough to run 50 kilometers. Those years represent the peak of my cardiovascular fitness to date.

A few years later I discovered yoga and achieved my peak flexibility fitness. More recently, just before conceiving my daughter, was the peak of my strength fitness. Now, 12 weeks after her birth and with my three-year-old son, is perhaps my peak of maternal fitness.

When, in my 37 years to date, was I at my absolute peak fitness? How does one define peak fitness? Socially, we use the words fit and fitness like they mean something very specific, but the more you try to pin them down the more elusive they seem.

And yet we try to apply this vague definition of fitness to Darwin’s proposed “survival of the fittest”. In the collective imagination there’s this idea of the peak predator, with ripped muscles, and the ultimate prey that can dart and hide in an instant. It frames cutthroat competition as the fundamental nature of survival in which any act of altruism must be explainable through selfish gain.

This is not what Darwin had in mind when he wrote The Origin of Species.

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Aside from physical fitness, there’s another way we talk about fit, and that is in the sense of how things fit together. This definition of fit is all about the relative and relational; a highly compatible couple is a good fit, as are adjacent pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Fit, as in well-suited for each other, is what Darwin meant when he said survival of the fittest. Those who are most compatible with their environment and times are the most likely to survive and pass their traits to the next generation. It’s not about being the strongest or the fastest; it’s about having and executing the best strategy for your context.

Although it’s tempting to view evolution or survival through selfishness, nature repudiates this explanation. Altruism is a strategy for collective survival, not an anomaly. The same way that a well-functioning company can produce more output than the same number of individual producers, a context-fitting altruistic structure can produce to excess in a way that individuals cannot. Hence, bees make so much honey that we can have some too without harming the hive.

But what about humans? We have a range of survival strategies at our disposal, which we use to live in diverse environments around the world. One of the critical, and variable, factors is the extent to which we do or don’t collaborate with one another. While there’s a lot of individual variability, culture plays a big role in how we view and practice collaboration.

But the key here is context; the quality of the survival strategy is ultimately determined by context. For all that we talk about the world changing, and quickly, we rarely look back to ask what our own history can teach us.

In the earliest days of humans, back when we shared the Earth with Neanderthals, we lived in groups of 20-50 people. These groups were nomadic, and unlike the hierarchical nature of other primates, we lived in a fairly egalitarian social structure. There was some specialization, after all, some are better hunters, and some are better foragers. But everyone actively participated in the procurement of resources. Once obtained, these resources were shared. This resource sharing was critical for survival.

It’s the inverse of the colloquial (and false) way of thinking about survival of the fittest: maximizing survival of the entire group resulted in better gene pool diversity, which in turn resulted in healthier individuals that were better able to contribute to the group. At the individual level, the best strategy was to provide as much as you could to the group, trusting that others would do the same.

As the climate changed the context changed, and around the world humans began to try their hands at farming. Agriculture made food more plentiful, eventually producing such quantities that not everyone had to spend all of their time procuring food. Good thing, as it also created new needs, like the ability to store food for long periods of time. And thus, artisans emerged.

This took the idea of human specialization to a new extreme, full division of labor. As different people specialized exclusively in specific activities, the perceived value of those activities began to vary. As arable land in ‘town’ became scarce, value distribution became uneven. The differences in social statuses were exaggerated, and clear hierarchies began to emerge.

Communalism remained critical; no one person could work an entire farm. But trade replaced the pooling of all resources. As the goods of artisans became more valuable, it also became more viable to survive as an individual.

Industrialization took the previous dynamics, gave them steroids, and added a dose of paradox. Division of labor was deepened, so that it was no longer about being specialized by type of good, but instead individuals were focused on producing a single part of a single good. As a result, an unprecedented number of people could be involved with the making of a single product, and simultaneously an unprecedented quantity of product could be made.

Individualism began to be championed; the titans of industry remain notorious for their ruthless pursuit of self-interest. But at the same time, communalism found new ground amongst laborers, who formed unions and mutual-aid societies. Human survival was simultaneously being achieved through very different strategies, even within a single factory.

Much was changing outside of the factory walls as well. Workers had to live near a factory to work in the factory, which drew record numbers of families into cities. Living with high population density meant no longer being able to grow your own food. In fact, shelter, food, water, and much more all had to be purchased. This created another new context: while obtaining sufficient currency became a critical mechanism of survival, it also created a new demand for businesses to supply the needs of the factory workers.

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The key, unifying theme is this: when the nature of work changes, so too does the context for survival. And when the context changes, so too do the strategies. The extent of individualism and communalism varies widely across communities and cultures. In many ways, individualism has become the standard narrative structure in the United States, often conflated with independence or freedom, though these are very different concepts. The high rate of family estrangement points to how much priority is placed on individualism.

Of course, this is top of mind because of AI. Whether the current models will do all they are promised to (spoiler: they won’t), I think the very idea that this capacity could be imminent is inducing an ontological shock similar to if we had a livestream of aliens meeting with our world leaders.

People are wrestling with a feeling of displacement en masse. An extraordinary amount of fear is being directed towards immigrants around the world; I suspect AI will induce an even stronger reaction. I don’t think we’re going to see a full Hubert-esque Butlerian Jihad, in which all computational technologies are rejected. I do think the backlash will be orders of magnitude larger than the Luddites, which was limited to textile workers.

So far, AI has dramatically changed the way only some people work. It has dramatically changed the way even more people justify their work. These are the early signs of another context shift.

So what will successful survival look like in the near future?

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

-Charles Darwin

Perhaps we see an even more extreme version of individualism emerge, perhaps we see a completely different configuration. It’s tempting to speculate, but I actually think that’s a distraction. It is the responsiveness to change that is critical.

Being responsive to new technologies is often conflated with being an early adopter, but that is too narrow. Sure, being an early adopter is one strategy, but there are others. After all, not every individual was well-suited to farming. Many discovered instead that their best opportunity was as an artisan. Similarly, not every individual was well-suited to industrial production and instead found opportunity by supplying goods to the masses of city dwellers.

Perhaps vibe-coding isn’t your cup of tea, or you’d prefer to avoid the use of AI altogether. That is fine. It does not change your ability or the importance of remaining responsive to change. It’s devastatingly tempting to want to stick to the strategy that has served (seemingly) well enough up until now. It can easily feel like that is the only approach that we are capable of, especially when the magnitude of change feels overwhelming.

But, as my best friend has frequently reminded me, that usually means you are due to change your perspective.

“I know you wanted to put roots down but your roots don’t have to go down into the earth. You’re more like an air plant anyway.”

-Marinda Dircks

In which direction will your new roots grow?