Natural “narrative selection” was key to turning insignificant apes (who had tools for 2 million years) into the species that now dominates the bio-sphere.
Source: Natural “Narrative Selection” Was the Key to Success for our Species | Big Think
2019-04-13 update:
I wish had pulled better summaries back when. This basically says that the thing that makes humans dominant on the planet is our ability to cooperate on massive scales. Every day you read about stupid people killing each other remember that approximately 7.5 billion humans didn’t kill anyone that day. I wonder if this article from March 2017 was the first time I encountered that idea? I doubt it. Nonzero by Robert Wright has to cover that and I read it back in 2005-ish.