The evolution of optimism and fantasy

There have been many cataclysmic events in the biological history of the planet. There have been mass extinctions and many more lesser, but relatively sudden changes of life on Earth. We are currently living through a mass extinction of species, even though it is man made. Modern humans lived through the last ice age, and there is evidence of an ancient, volcanic event which caused the human population to plummet into the single digit percentages. If we assume that's true and link it to certain knowledge related to psychology, it's not unlikely that humans with optimistic traits had a survival advantage. Because humans, unlike other animals, have the special trait of conscious self-awareness, or sapience. In a difficult existence, the state of mind, itself, can be an obstacle to overcome, on top of the increased difficulties in living conditions. In any case, the capacity for adaptive bias in human judgment, or optimism probably did evolve for a reason, along with sapience, itself.

With that framework in place, we could understand the propensity for fantasy. Every culture on Earth has had at least a tolerance for fantasy, but more typically a complete acceptance of at least some type of fantasy or another. This can include religion, depending on who you ask, in which case it would have often been an expectation of fantasy.

Let's fast forward past fireside tales, cave paintings, the 35,000 year old figurine of a sexy lady (above), and even past the advent of literary tales, radio and moving images with sound. Of course there is strict, non-fiction media, but in the case of fiction, our capacity for adaptive bias in judgment allows us to emotionally respond to completely made-up scenarios and characters.

This capacity also allows us to respond to airbrushed pictures of models and celebrities. At this point airbrushing photos is not a secret, but not that any industry using it is promoting this awareness. Maybe young people won't be aware of these things, and in my view, we should at least formally educate children about them, just like we tell to not do drugs and to look both ways before crossing the street, but that's not the point I'm getting at.

The point is that despite a wide awareness of its non-reality, it still sells. And there often seems to be some strange gray area between a self-aware fantasizing of a fiction and an idolizing of supposed real people, or at least that's how it seems, to me. A better, and more typical example of this is cosmetics. The airbrushing of pictures is contentious, but the use of cosmetics on women is widely accepted, and even encouraged, if not expected.

Some would be shocked by the above airbrushing, but I'd say most wouldn't bat an eye if cosmetics had produced the same effect. We can rationalize all this in various ways, if we need to. But there is no denying that airbrushed advertisements and cosmetics “work”. The advertisement industry is not alchemy. They've been doing things for a very long time and they know what sells. And even if you ask guys what they think about women wearing cosmetics, they will typically say that they “don't like it”, while the guys in field experiments always prefer women wearing at least some amount of cosmetics.

If it was true that the whole of society was fine with basing social judgment around, if not pining for the artwork that is airbrushing and cosmetics, guys with those anime pillows and dolls in Japan wouldn't be so typically singled out for ridicule or pity. Instead, we go through some kind of reverse-inception-like event where we fantasize that we're not fantasizing about fantasy.

The evolution of fantasy drives us to feel good when we fantasize. Just because something makes us feel good doesn't necessarily mean it's beneficial to us, especially in the modern world. Just because anti-freeze is sweet and calorie-free doesn't mean it's not deadly. Just because a "charismatic" and funny sociopath sweeps us off our feet doesn't mean they are necessarily the person best suited to be a leader, or best suited to be anything else. We have to work against our evolved traits as much as we work with them. We already manipulate them in ways such as those mentioned above, why not manipulate them with more deliberate wisdom? The most immediate threat to human civilization, or at least the one that seems most assured, is not an ice age or a super volcano, but ourselves. If we can't even categorically separate fantasy from reality, how can we have a hope of overcoming things like nuclear war, global warming (which we caused), resource depletion and all the social unrest that will likely be exacerbated by all that?

We would really prefer to only slap on some cosmetics on the world (or warp tools on our enemies) instead of getting our hands dirty to improve anything?