“Unhappy is the land that needs a hero”*…

To the extent that evolutionary biologist and sociobiologist Robert Trivers has been in the news over the last decade, it has been for his entanglement with and highly-questionable defense of Jeffrey Epstein. But as Lionel Page reminds us, two decades before that– well before he could have known the execrable “financier”– Trivers made hugely important contributions to his field…

Steve Stewart-Williams announced… that Robert Trivers passed away.

Trivers was one of the most—perhaps the most—influential evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. His work should be much more widely known in social and behavioural sciences, in particular in economics, as Trivers’ intellectual approach is very much in line with a game theoretic understanding of social interactions.

It is hard to overstate the importance of his work. Einstein famously published four groundbreaking papers in 1905, a year often referred to as his “Annus mirabilis”, during which he revolutionised physics. Trivers might be said to have had a “Quinquennium Mirabile” for the five years between 1971 and 1976, during which he produced a series of ideas that revolutionised evolutionary biology…

[Page unpacks four of those contributions: Reciprocal Alturism, Parental Investment, Parental Offspring Conflict, and Self-Deception, each fascinating…]

… Trivers has been one of the most influential evolutionary biologists, and his papers are still worth reading today. His insights, published more than 50 years ago, are fascinating. They often align very well with economic theories of behaviour, and it is therefore regrettable that his ideas are not more well-known in economics, and in particular in behavioural economics.

A key feature of Trivers’ take across these contributions was to see that beneath the world of social interactions we observe, there are deep structures in terms of incentives that shape the game we play. Understanding these games and their structures helps us make sense of the seemingly endless complexity of human psychology and social dynamics. In several key contributions, Trivers helped lift the veil on the underlying logic of human behaviour…

From cooperation to conflict: the evolutionary grammar of social interactions: “The fascinating insights of Robert Trivers” from @lionelpage.bsky.social.

For more on Trivers and the controversies in his life (Epstein, but also the Black Panthers and a Rutgers set-to), all of which followed the burst of productivity described above, see here.

And for some thoughts on how one might reconcile appreciation for a scientist’s work with abhorence of his later sins, see “Ghosts of Science Past Still Haunt Us. We Can Put Them to Rest.“

* Bertolt Brecht (through the mouth of Galileo, in The Life of Galileo)

###

As we linger over legacies, we might send material birthday greetings to a man who helped lay the groundwork for the field to which Trivers contributed, Ludwig Büchner; he was born on this date in 1824. A philosopher, physiologist, and physician, he became one of the leading exponents of 19th-century scientific materialism. Büchner was an early champion of Darwin’s theory of evolution, endorsing it within a decade of its first issuance, then did much to spread it by citing and building on it in his own books.

As far as we know, Büchner’s life was free of the scandal and conflict that plagued Trivers. He taught at the University of Tübingen and published dozens of books and papers. Later in his life he founded he “German Freethinkers League” (“Deutsche Freidenkerbund”) and served as a member of the second chamber of the Landstände of the Grand Duchy of Hesse as a representative of the German Free-minded Party from 1884 to 1890. He was the younger brother of Georg Büchner, a famous revolutionary playwright, and Luise Büchner, a women’s rights advocate; and he was the uncle of Ernst Büchner, inventor of the Büchner flask.

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binaries and essentialism includes materialism versus spiritualism discourse

#Essentialism #Materialism #Spirituality

I was just reading about Alan Turing and got sidetracked learning about Materialism (the philosophy) which has now torn open a new dimension in my mind thinking of Celine Song’s #Materialists that I just saw the other day. When you view the movie in terms of class struggle… 🤯

#Philosophy #Materialism #Movies #CelineSong

https://youtu.be/rTIMpAQzl4g

"The universe in its own unique way, was slapping me silly and asking me to stop. And just try and be happy with what I have. Not find happiness with what I can have next. After all, in the end, it is about knowing what I am seeking really.

"The pattern repeats. Objects are what change.

"Things that somehow add up and pile up. Another new pen. Another new nib, new notebook. It’s all a distraction. Things that seem to bring happiness, but in the end are nothing but distractions from life and the emptiness of it." — Om Malik

So true.

#Tanha #desire #emptiness #materialism

https://om.co/2026/03/13/tanha-our-modern-consumerism/

"We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
Martin Luther King Jr. 1967-04-04

1️⃣9️⃣6️⃣7️⃣🤯

Read this: "What Does Selma Have to Do With Silicon Valley?"
https://www.brandonrickabaugh.com/whatdoesselmahavetodowithsiliconvalley

#AI #justice #racism #materialism #militarism #martinlutherkingjr

I've been increasingly concerned about the corporate monopoly over frontier LLMs. While many ethically-minded people choose to boycott these models, I believe passive resistance alone cannot break the structural grip of big tech. To truly “liberate” these technologies and turn them into public goods, we need to look beyond moral high grounds and engage with the material basis of AI—specifically compute, data, and the relations of production.

I've written two posts exploring this through the lens of historical materialism. The first piece analyzes why current “open source” definitions struggle with LLMs, and the second discusses what it means to “act materialistically” in our imperfect world. My goal is to suggest a path forward that moves from mere boycotting to a more proactive, structural socialization of AI infrastructure.

If you've been feeling uneasy about the AI landscape but aren't sure if boycotting is the final answer, I'd love for you to give these a read:

• Histomat of F/OSS: We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them
• Acting materialistically in an imperfect world: LLMs as means of production and social relations

#LLM #AI #opensource #historicalmaterialism #histomat #materialism #digitalcommons

𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐖𝐚𝐲𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: "𝐎𝐟 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬" -

When writing children's verse, it's hard to see where sincerity ends and parody begins . . . .

https://waywordsstudio.com/verse/of-kings-and-things/

#poetry #originalpoetry #childrensverse #parody #fairytale #fable #jealousy #greed #materialism #cautionarytale #politics