Today, we use rituals such as graduations, marriages, retirement parties, and funerals to jointly and overtly affirm community values at key social transitions.Read more at location 5314
emotional energy becomes amplified as participants achieve a common focus of attention and act in ways that are finely synchronized and coordinated with each otherRead more at location 5316
Such group synchronization shows participants that they feel similarly to others in the group, and know each other well.Read more at location 5319
many forms of synchronized human activities, in dances, plays, movies, concerts, lectures, protests, freeways, business meetings, group recitations in schools, consumption of advertised products, and group songs that coordinate work in hunting, farming, sailing,Read more at location 5322
We expect ems to continue to show this tendency to prefer social situations where vivid awareness of finely synchronized actions can assure them of shared capacities and values.Read more at location 5324
we expect ems to say hello and goodbye as they join and leave meetings, and to find reasons for frequent face-to-face meetings at work.Read more at location 5326
In the industrial era, we have a substantially lower rate of such rituals than did our forager and farmer ancestors.Read more at location 5329
wealth are high enough to support fashion cycles, and both these factors raise the status of people with eccentric behavior.Read more at location 5332
signal our increasing wealth with more product and behavioral variety, instead of via connectionsRead more at location 5333
With increasing wealth, industrial era values have moved away from conformity and tradition and toward self-direction and tolerance.Read more at location 5334
Increased forager-like egalitarianism has made us less comfortable with the explicit class distinctions that supported many farmer-era rituals.Read more at location 5335
Our suppression of family clans in the West has also repressed many family rituals.Read more at location 5336
innovation is less important in an em economy than in ours. As a result, it’s likely that our recent trend away from overt rituals will be partially reversed.Read more at location 5339
In sum, ems may have more and stronger rituals than we do today, reverting in part to previous historical patterns.Read more at location 5353
Religions and their rituals often help to bond people to groups. By following seemingly arbitrary rules restricting behavior and beliefs, members can credibly signal their attachment to a group,Read more at location 5355
Groups with stronger arbitrary rules tend to be more strongly attached to one another (Iannaccone 1994Read more at location 5357
Today, religious people tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive (Steen 1996). They live longer, smoke less, exercise more, earn more, get and stay married more, commit less crime, use less illegal drugs, have more social connections, donate and volunteer more, and have more children. Intensity of religion and strength of religious belief tends to increase with age, especially on retirement (Bengtson et al. 2015Read more at location 5360
ems are also likely to be more farmer-like. Because of this, ems tend to believe more in good and evil, and in powerful gods who enforce social norms. All of these considerations suggest that ems are more religious.Read more at location 5365
today more religious geographic regions are less innovative, and more religious individuals hold views less favorable to innovation (Bénabou et al. 2015). So if the innovation effect is important enough, ems will be less religious;Read more at location 5366
most of the major religions of today are thousands of years old, and have peacefully accommodated almost all of the vast changes that have appeared since those religions began. Thus religions are clearly capable of adapting to a great many social changes, and so we should expect most of them to adapt comfortably to the em world as well.Read more at location 5370
Christians and similar religions must decide if copies share sins, or if an em sins when it splits off a spur who then sins, especially if that sin was foreseeable.Read more at location 5373
Further doctrinal clarifications may be required because ems on average are much smarter than ordinary humans, and may not tolerate blatantly illogical or contradictory religious doctrines.Read more at location 5375
Note: DOTTRINE PIÙ COERENTI
