213) Dr. Christopher Ryan: Debunking the myths of civilization and learning from prehistoric humans
Green Dreamer: Seeding change towards collective healing, sustainability, regeneration
Kaméa Chayne
4.8 • 694 Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2020
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr. Christopher Ryan is a psychologist, the podcast host of Tangentially Speaking, and the co-author of the New York Times Bestseller Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships.
His latest book—a fascinating read which critically and inquisitively examines how civilization has affected our livelihoods and wellbeing as humans—is Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress.
In this podcast episode, Christopher sheds light on the common misconceptions people often have of our prehistoric relatives; how the advent of agriculture turned egalitarian hunter and gatherer communities into ones with hierarchical power structures that created social inequality; and more.
Featured music: Mountain Twin by Joel Porter
Episode notes: www.greendreamer.com/213
Weekly solutions-based news: www.greendreamer.com
Support the show: www.greendreamer.com/support
Instagram: www.instagram.com/greendreamerpodcast
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I have a quick but important ask. As you're probably aware, Green Dreamer is an independent |
| 0:07.9 | podcast and we don't take on corporate advertisers to fund our work because we don't want those |
| 0:13.7 | considerations to influence our curiosities or our abilities to question whatever it is that we want to question. |
| 0:22.3 | So if you value and believe in our work, this is our call out. |
| 0:26.8 | We need your direct support in order to continue this podcast. |
| 0:30.7 | And you can help us out so, so much through a paid substack subscription to my newsletter at |
| 0:37.3 | camaya.substack.com or through a one-time |
| 0:40.4 | donation at greendreamer.com slash support. It really means a lot to have you here and we're so |
| 0:47.6 | grateful for whatever form or level of support that you're able to share with us. |
| 0:54.8 | Green Dreamer is supported by our listener patrons. |
| 0:57.1 | To support this independent show and join our online community starting at just $2 per |
| 1:02.1 | month, you can head to greendreamer.com slash support to learn more. |
| 1:06.6 | If you follow the arguments and civilized to death that on an individual level, we're really not better off. |
| 1:12.1 | Even the luckiest among us is not significantly better off than Hunter Gatherers. |
| 1:18.0 | So what have we been doing for the last 10,000 years? |
| 1:21.6 | Who benefits from this? |
| 1:26.1 | That was Dr. Christopher Ryan, a psychologist, host of the podcast Tengentially Speaking, |
| 1:32.1 | co-author of the New York Times bestseller Sex at Dawn, How We Made, Why We Stray and |
| 1:36.7 | What It Means for Modern Relationships, and author of his more recently published book, |
| 1:42.1 | Civilized to Death, The Price of Progress. Central to Green |
| 1:46.1 | Dreamer is this question of, what are we progressing for if the basic things that matter to people's |
| 1:51.8 | lives are deteriorating? Life satisfaction, happiness, mental health, connection, community, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kaméa Chayne, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Kaméa Chayne and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.