An Energetic Theory for the Future of Humanity

Ready for an intellectual adventure full of beautiful analysis both qualitative and quantitative, variety in topics, and critical insights for our time as well as the future? In Michael Muthukrishna’s A Theory of Everyone, you’ve come to the right place—at least to a certain extent. Muthukrishna lays down his four Laws of Life in this work, which allow us to see the true nature of the forces in charge of life and to navigate, possibly, the whole future of humanity. All this is written in a way that is understandable to the amateur, lively, entertaining, and logical.

Muthukrishna wants to tell us (part 1) Who We Are and How We Got Here, and (part 2) Where We’re Going: in short, what human beings are and recommendations for our future. Both parts are interesting and audacious, with plenty of examples. The analysis given is rich in mathematical and conceptual thinking within many different disciplines, with occasional reliance—really just touchpoints or quick shout-outs—on classical (usually Western) thought. 

Muthukrishna’s four Laws of Life are (in my best paraphrase) as follows. First, the Law of Energy: life requires energy to run, and so getting more energy is centrally important to the success of life. Second and Third, the Laws of Innovation and Cooperation: life will innovate the ways it both acquires and uses energy, and it will cooperate for the same purposes. Fourth and finally, the Law of Evolution: things that do not grow get crowded out, so regardless of what we think might work, the “system” “selects” that which does in fact work. With this bold stroke of the pen, Muthukrishna claims to have given us the keys to the kingdom of knowledge regarding what it means to be human and to live as one. This is A Theory of Everyone. 

After giving the laws, the book proceeds to first describe evolutionary history, starting in the presumptive earliest stages of life, then a bit of human history, and then human nature in general, hitting us with exciting examples throughout. If you liked Freakonomics, then you will love this. Not everybody can write a mathematical or conceptually rigorous book complete with tight logical connections that simply revels in the love of its subject matter, but Muthukrishna can and did. 

For example, he regales us with Cunningham’s Law (which posits that, since many on the internet love to correct others, you can be assured of a correct answer by posting the wrong answer), then apprises us of Norway’s success setting up an investment fund with its oil money, eventually gaining 1.5% of the entire stock market. He makes a case that an increase in cesarean sections could change human brain sizes because they had previously been limited by the size of the birth canal. The author shares an appreciation for the elderly as critical fonts of knowledge that we can’t live without in times that have stayed similar for decades, although such wisdom is in jeopardy when times are rapidly changing. 

The book explores as perhaps its most marquee idea the cultural brain hypothesis: human beings as a species rely on handed-down culture even more than individuals’ grey matter for our collective ability to innovate and function. We are also treated to Uber Europe’s 5S rules—which includes the “two-pizza rule,” limiting the number of people one should invite to a meeting by the amount of food the group may eat, showing a general limit on cooperation. He argues that copying others is a good thing (again, like so many of his points, illustrated by several accurate, interesting examples), puncturing a hole in our individualistic American sensibilities. He gets at fundamental questions of cultural groups by exploring the forces at work in discussing things like loyalty.

Such insights can deepen our understanding of humanity, especially why we do the things we do. In a couple of important ways, however, the book falls short. The author compares his central idea to the water fish swim in: that just as water is ubiquitously crucial for fish, perhaps without their realizing it exists because of its very ubiquity, the truth of his theory is the crux of humans’ lives (perhaps without our understanding it). Given this declared ultimate status, one thing puzzled me: in introducing his four laws, our author makes absolutely no attempt to show that they are necessary or sufficient, nor does he compare them to competing theories. We might ask, What of other essential parts of life beyond energy? 

Energy simply plays too central of a role here. Sure, scales of cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies might contain an energy-driven dynamic in which banding together more people to hunt large game like a stag makes sense—the stag is worth a lot more energy than a rabbit. Likewise, the availability of energy (through fossil fuels) has been central to the great increase in many measures of human well-being since around year 1700. However, it would take a great feat to show the central role of energy for literature or fashion or entertainment. 

I wonder if Muthukrishna unfairly narrows the human good to its materialistic component, for which energy may be a fairly good specification. We humans pursue many things, and they are called the good; but they comprise more than energy. 

Let’s look at just one example. His section on romantic relations has a lot of analysis on cooperation, incentive structures, and alternatives to monogamous marriage. In the end, it seems that monogamous marriage in the data displays overwhelming dominance, but what we get is an uncertain result: “Monogamy as a norm … is an evolutionary mystery.” Is this a case in which life in fact disobeys his theory and goes against economic or energy utility? 

Regarding non-energy goods, it may be that they are pursued wittingly or unwittingly for the sake of energy, or that the pursuit of energy matters for whether you survive evolutionarily, so therefore energy always wins out. 

Muthukrishna goes on to make a number of recommendations (or predictions?), one of which is Start-Up Cities, in which a model of city-scale governance in one place is seeded into a new place. Another is Programmable Politics, in which, it seems, we can choose in online transactions the universe of laws in which our transaction is meant to take place. There are recommendations on taxes, social media, and education. These are interesting suggestions, though it is simply hard to predict the future. 

In all this, Muthukrishna has goals for us driven by ideals. He wants to set us up for truth in media, trust in our scientists, less acrimony in politics, and more effective learning. This is why when reading the book, one is hardly left cold: there seems to be no problem with humans pursuing spiritual and other goods besides energy in Muthukrishna’s future work, only this is not formally in the theory. 

Once again, the book caused me great enjoyment and gave innumerable useful as well as true insights (where would we be without energy?). As much as the book is thoroughly secular, I believe that the value of general human goods is honored within its pages, although unofficially. 

So what is the most accurate and productive way to regard this secular theory? Christ lets us know the value of prudence, and that in carrying out the spiritual mission we should bring a bag with our belongings, and even a sword. I raise an objection to A Theory of Everyone for the reason that, if it colors our worldview entirely, godless (and at an official level human-good-less) and bleak—and inaccurate—it becomes. God is here (thankfully) guiding us. But if we say we have a theory of what it means to be human and don’t need Him, He might just let us have what we want. Then all the enthusiasm of innovation might be over. All the energy in the world isn’t enough to fill our souls. 

Moreover, the history of humanity doesn’t show the greatest results for basing political decisions on an “ultimate” theory of us, brilliant though it may be. But what do we do, run away from any scientific theory of life? Where such a theory shines is in helping us navigate this strange, difficult, broken world. Our brave author is on to a fundamental dynamic of the way human beings operate: we will innovate in order to deal with finitely available energy and adjust our cooperative social structures accordingly—or be evolutionarily selected out. Take notes, y’all. In this way, we’ll nourish our bellies, avoid various disasters, and much more. But that’s not the complete picture. We must obey spiritual laws as well to nourish our souls, or we will meet other disasters as well. 

A Theory of Everyone, while incomplete, is the fruit of a current academic field at the intersection of economics, biology, and psychology. We will never get to perfection in this life, but Michael Muthukrishna is bursting to clue us in on some real wisdom, excitedly swashbuckling through his chapters as he does it. He has tons to say (for political junkies, much of it deliciously relevant to current debates), as well as audacious recommendations for the future. Enjoy it—for what it is.