Humans are incredibly stupid, to the point where some of us even get offended by different ideas than our own.

Religion just fills a tribal hole, it can easily be replaced by politics, sports, or even bitcoin.

Best bet is to assume that your wrong often and keep an open mind.

No, and there's nothing you can say to change my mind. 😉

it may not be hardwired, but I imagine if it weren't beneficial it would have bred itself away.

small group is better than individual ape.

at a certain size and organizational sophistication, tribes become less effective as they get larger.

Even Bitcoiners have differing faiths! I think this human trait is natural, I mean I’m inclined to believe that.

We (modern humans) have spent a significant part of our evolutionary journey residing in small, interconnected groups of hunter-gatherers, and later, following the advent of agriculture, in only slightly larger communal settings. Even today, humans tend to feel at ease being part of a relatively small group. We might be working for a large, “impersonal” corporation, but it’s likely that we think in terms of “our” office, our team, or similar contexts. Alternatively, we could be part of a bowling league or a member of a fraternal organization or something akin to that. These all serve as representations of ‘tribes. ” Anthropologists have described nation-states as “super-tribes”…. .

Yes, humans are hardwired to survive long enough to pass on our genes. For much of human history the most efficient way to survive was to be part of a tribe. So I do think this behaviour is now hardwired into our dna.

To act collectively we establish collective illusions. This could be quite anodyne like all these kids at the music recital are talented, which even if they all the kids are not talented, allows us to put on the recital and have everyone feel good.

Once we've established the illusion it get exploited: machiavellian individuals can use the illusion to wield power and coercion, usually by coaxing naive individuals to spiral into delusion.

This triangulates those disempowered by the social belief, motivating these "outcasts" to attempt to controvert or overthrow the illusion. This causes a reaction among the believers who see the outcasts as attempting to undermine the premise of collective action itself.

In essence,

I'm gonna go full Jonathan Haidt/The Righteous Mind here and say... YES!

excuse me? 👀

Humans are weak individually so form into groups where they can achieve greater power and security. These groups develop around a set of ideas and values and the result is a culture, which in turn competes with adjacent cultures. As conditions and technology change the ideal form of society changes, and as this happens cultures and empires rise and fall.

The only constant is change.

Thus the contest of ideas, which science and democracy both theoretically embrace, is fundamental to survival.

Forced consensus, common to autocracies/despots is in contrast a considerable risk.

Governments are central to the wealth of nations. Libertarians seem oblivious to these fundamental dynamics.

Only the worst badasses survived and reproduced. Peaceful tribes were driven to the least habitable parts of the world and fell back in development.

the smaller, the better... can't have a "normal" discussion with 100 people, you can (technically) with 3-5. People will NOT have a unified consensus on many things; I think this is actually a good thing.

Yes, and in the order you listed: tribes first, then disagreements.