The Quality Life Jungle of Human Individual Differences
We see each other…and the world…through the biological lens of our individual differences
Much of human psychology and social conflict is about the strivings and difficulties people face in their endeavors to have a healthy, happy, long and purposeful life in the DNA jungle of human individual differences.
However…
Welcome to the Jungle!
The human motivations and capacities underlying every art, science, and innovation—whether aimed at satisfying a need or seeking something good—emerge from the complex interplay of genetic propensities and environmental conditions (e.g. social, political, economic, natural and biophysical).405
Like fingers ac
ross a piano’s keyboard creating a melody, this interplay produces life course trajectories with many variations and outcomes. In a similar way, individual experiences and traits emerge from the unique interplay of genetic propensities and environmental factors while on a broader scale, countries and cultures can have distinct but intertwined themes, harmonies and melodies created by the collective and dynamic gene-environment experiences of their populations.
Now…here we are in the 21st century…our biological and cultural themes, harmonies and melodies in discord.
Who are we and what have we done?
See our foundational article Predatory Well-Being: A Global Problem.
The gene-environment framework of every culture and country in the world is littered with the heritable inequalities of social hierarchy and socioeconomic stratification reproduced through multiple pathways that include the biological embedding of social experience.
The articles currently on this website explain the gene-environment basis of this pattern, laying the foundation for a series of new feature articles showing how increasingly complex global conflicts are accelerating this biologically embedded pattern into a crisis that will threaten the future of our genome and the planet.
Below is a short list of major social, economic, environmental and geopolitical problems that will be discussed in future articles.
In each of these flashpoints, a gene-environment paradox, system-justified harms, advancing AI technologies and the internet, are playing a critical role, accelerating changes in social, political and economic structures across the world.
–the unbridled concentration of income, wealth and technological power on a global basis
–cultural, racial and ethnocentric hostilities fueled by socioeconomic inequality
–the global impact of increasingly complex climate change inequities on low-income populations
–global conflicts over habitable and agricultural land
–global food production and distribution inequities
–global health, education and longevity disparities
–the Internet’s role in weaponizing data, fueling disinformation warfare and amplifying ethnic, racial, religious and cultural tribalism
–social conflicts over AI’s role in governance, education and resource distribution
–Biotech Elites capturing political systems and economic resources
–political instabilities resulting in the global rise of authoritarian regimes
–political and economic conflicts between nuclear nations
We believe over the next 75 years, if nothing is done to prevent it, the unprecedented convergence of these factors will result in a gene-environment driven global flashpoint where the increasingly complex predatory stresses of social hierarchy and socioeconomic inequality will threaten the future of our genome and the planet’s life support systems.
Something must be done…
The Global Pursuit of Well-Being Across Our Individual & Cultural Differences
Humanity’s Most Dangerous Self-Inflicted Wound: Predatory Well-Being
The core articles on QualityLifeJungle.net focus on the following original concepts of Predatory Well-Being, supported by a substantial body of research…
The Gene-Environment Paradox Human differences in cognition, behavior, moral judgments, and social preferences emerge from the interplay between inherited DNA differences (genetic propensities) and environmental conditions.420 The result is a paradox—the paradox of the right and the good—what is considered “right” or “good” varies across individuals and groups due to biological variation.429 This isn’t mere disagreement…it reflects genuine neurological and genetic differences in how people compute fairness, risk, and moral judgment.
System-Justified Harms Since the emergence of the first cities and states approximately 5,000 years ago189,203, social hierarchies have weaponized this variation through system-justified harms (harms that function as social and moral goods)—coercive acts such as punishment, exclusion, and inequality that are framed as necessary, fair, or even virtuous because they preserve the dominant group’s moral order and access to well-being. As the articles explain: “When a harm functions as a social and moral good, the harm is turned into a morally right, fair, just and fully deserved punishment.”
Equality Exclusions (EQEXs) These system-justified harms become institutionalized through Equality Exclusions—rules, laws, and policies that embed inequality into the very infrastructure of society. EQEXs make it “fair, just and prosocial for individuals and groups in the upper levels of the social hierarchy to extract resources and quality life years from descending levels of the hierarchy.”
The Jack-in-the-Box Pattern History reveals a relentless cycle: social hierarchies rise, accumulate inequality, become rigid, and eventually fail—only for new hierarchies to emerge with new elites and new system-justified harms.425 As historian Walter Scheidel documents, “ever since the dawn of civilization, ongoing advances in economic capacity and state building favored growing inequality but did little if anything to bring it under control.”193
Jack includes the gene-environment stresses of socioeconomic inequality, ethnocentrism, racism and the clash of political, cultural and religious differences–stresses that persist within and across generations and countries, and that can become biologically embedded through epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation.
Converging Global Flashpoints The “Welcome to the Jungle” article identifies an unprecedented convergence of crises (flashpoints) accelerating toward a global tipping point.
Predatory Well-Being: A Global Problem
Is there anything more dangerous to the future of the planet than a predator with a ‘big brain’ that can make harms look like social and moral goods?
Approximately 300,000 years ago, after millions of years of genetic variation in hominin evolution, a very different kind of predator with a ‘big brain’ appeared–Homo sapiens.241
Through language, cause-effect reasoning, technological innovation and prosocial norms this cognitive super-predator would eventually open a doorway to the first very thin horizon lines of well-being—a long, healthy, happy and purposeful life.
However, the doorway to well-being reveals an evolutionary path strewn with the potholes of natural selection.63,257,299
By favoring heritable variation in cognition, emotion and behavior, natural selection unleashed a gene-environment paradox, the paradox of the right and the good: What is considered right or good varies across individuals and groups, shaped, influenced and biased429 by differences between individuals in their inherited DNA (genetic propensities) and the complex interplay of these differences with environmental conditions (e.g., social, political, economic, technological, natural and biophysical).419
As a result of the interplay, people actively evoke, create, modify and select into environments423 that best align with their genetic propensities,420,76 forming groups and coalitions that often serve as vehicles for hierarchy and social dominance201,395,432 resulting in a competition to influence and control how norms and institutions regulate the distribution of resources and power.430
The socio-genetic effects of the interplay shape the stratified architecture of social hierarchy, political and economic structures thick with inequalities enforced by system-justified harms—harms that function as social and moral goods.415 These harms, such as coercive punishment, exclusion and inequality are justified as fair, necessary and even virtuous because they reflect the values and interests–what is considered right or good–of dominant groups.
The Paradox of the Right and the Good
A Gene-Environment Paradox
People have different talents, abilities, life course goals, desires and outcomes, shaped by an interplay between their inherited DNA differences (genetic propensities) and environmental conditions (e.g., social, political, economic, natural and biophysical).420
Fundamental to these differences are social conflicts over resource distribution and well-being due to differences between individuals in their social, political, economic and moral assessments of ‘right’ and its relationship to what is considered ‘good’.
Research has shown differences between individuals in making choices about what is right or good are biased by differences in their inherited DNA (genetic propensities) and the interplay of those propensities with environmental conditions.429 (Also see reference list below).
This means conflicts over resource distribution aren’t just “disagreements” … they reflect real biological differences based on the interplay of a person’s DNA differences and environmental conditions.431
Whether these conflicts are over resource distribution or political beliefs, they have biological roots in how genetic variation interacts with environmental variation to produce neural systems that compute diverse strategies based on different internal valuations of fairness and efficiency.
It all begins here: DNA provides instructions for making proteins, but what is built depends on how those instructions develop in any particular person or environment.
Across development, experiences and exposures—from prenatal nutrition and stress to education, relationships, culture, and institutions—influence gene expression regulating and shaping how neurons form, connect, and change with learning.
Without DNA there are no proteins, and without proteins there are no neurons or neural circuits. However, without environmental inputs, those circuits would not be organized, calibrated, or updated in the specific ways that support perception, language, art, science, and the wide range of political and economic beliefs.
DNA is the foundation but does not determine outcomes. DNA supplies capacities, constraints and bounded limits with environments shaping how these limits unfold.
Below is a list of categories for reference 429. Click here to see the references for each category.
- Gene-Environment Foundations, Evidence, and Neural Mechanisms
- Moral Pluralism–Why People Disagree About Right and Good
- Twin and Genetic Studies of Morality and Prosociality
- Political Attitudes and Behavior: Genetics and Neuroscience
- Genetic Foundations of Risk and Decision-Making
- Economic Preferences and Altruism
- The Pervasiveness of Genetic Influence: From Tastes to Temperament
Socioeconomic Inequality and Genetic Enhancement
Policies that justify and reinforce socioeconomic inequality create environmental conditions that have genetic effects on both current and future generations.
For example, while the term “genetic enhancement” may typically refer to the use of genetic modification techniques to improve specific characteristics or traits in humans, genetic enhancement can occur without bioengineering interventions.
Heritable Inequality: The Dark Legacy of Social Hierarchy
When the first cities and states began to appear 5000+ years ago, top-down social hierarchy and socioeconomic inequality came too.189,203,395
A growing body of research shows the ‘predatory’ stresses of social hierarchy and socioeconomic inequality become biologically embedded, contributing to a cycle of disadvantage where systemic harms can persist and be reinforced across generations.351
The Cognitive Super-Predator in the 21st Century
The hard problem of human individual differences sits like a sphinx guarding the gateway to equality and well-being with a prosocial riddle, a gateway through which each of us must pass...
Sharpened Points
Quality Life Years Lost to Meritocracy
Across the world, people have different abilities, goals and desires, shaped by an interplay between their inherited DNA differences (genetic propensities) and environmental conditions (e.g., social, political, economic, natural and biophysical).420
The result is a competition to create, arrange and select into social environments that best align with one’s genetic-shaped desires and preferences.420,76
This selection and alignment process is a determinant of life course experiences, outcomes and well-being.
Something Morally Defective...
Health and Longevity in America
Researchers Daniel Oesch and Nathalie Vigna make the following point about a decline in quality life years for the working class in the United States: “The most tangible sign that the quality of life of the working class has declined comes from mortality rates in the United States, showing that the life expectancy of lowly educated middle-aged whites has been falling since 1999.”96
Research Safari
“The central idea of post-growth is to replace the goal of increasing GDP with the goal of improving human wellbeing within planetary boundaries.”
Kallis, G., Kostakis, V., Lange, S., Muraca, B., Paulson, S., & Schmelzer, M. (2025). Post-growth: The science of wellbeing within planetary boundaries. The Lancet Planetary Health, 9(2), e182-e193.
“Our comprehensive assessment revealed an unparalleled taxonomic, spatial, and ecological breadth of humanity’s predatory niche. This uniquely large predatory role is up to 300 times taxonomically and 1300 times ecologically larger than those of the non-human predators to which we had comparable data.”
Darimont, C. T., Cooke, R., Bourbonnais, M. L., Artelle, K. A., Duplisea, D. E., Favaro, B., Fox, C. H., Pauly, D., Salomon, A. K., & Hutchings, J. A. (2023). Humanity’s diverse predatory niche and its ecological consequences. Communications Biology, 6, 609.
Over the last 175 years, just 0.000005% of Earth’s evolutionary time… the global concentration of income, wealth and technological power, the appearance of a global superclass, changing population demographics, growing disparities in food distribution and healthcare outcomes, increasingly complex socioeconomic inequities, the polarizing effect of the Internet on political, religious, ethnic and racial differences, AI’s impact on governance, education, jobs and economic distribution, biotech privileges funneled to the rich, nuclear nations in ideological conflicts over territory and resources and the unrelenting intertwining effects of climate change have driven our genome and the planet… to the brink of disaster in a geologic instant.239
Excerpt from “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats
Source: Poetry Foundation
Social Hierarchies Justify Exclusionary Well-Being
In a social hierarchy, individuals with high socioeconomic status (SES) acquire and sustain their income, wealth, status and power by extracting resources and quality life years from low SES others, which includes members of the middle class.
There is something morally defective about a society’s norms and institutions when a person's inherited DNA differences are a determinant of socioeconomic status and life course well-being—quality life years lost or gained.
Across the world, differences between individuals and groups over what is right and good drives predatory social conflicts over resources and well-being.
However, these differences have biological roots, making them dependent on a signpost hidden in the gene-environment jungle of our individual differences—
Well-Being Across Our Individual & Cultural Differences
What We Stand For
Well-Being Across Our Individual & Cultural Differences
Stop the Intergenerational Transmission of Social Hierarchy and Socioeconomic Inequality…
We Support the Following:
Policies Focusing on Quality Life Years Gained…
Universal Health Care
Wage Subsidies
Minimum Basic Income
Rent and Price Control Policies
Supply Chain Transparency in Food & Over the Counter Drugs
The Paris Accord
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Smart Machine Technologies (AI) as a Global Public Good
Public Banking Concepts…as described by Angus Deaton
Global Wealth Tax
Public Ownership of Natural Resources
Anti-Death Penalty
Public Ownership of Energy Supply
A Global Consortium to Establish Policies Regarding Private and Public Rights
Regulation of Ownership and use of Space and Planetary Bodies
All for-profit corporations should develop social enterprise projects designed to reduce the political and economic effects of hierarchy– socio-economic inequality and inequities in health, happiness and longevity.
In addition, we endorse an editorial in Nature March 2022 on climate change.
“Although there’s now a consensus that human activities have irreversible environmental effects, researchers disagree on the solutions — especially if that involves curbing economic growth. That disagreement is impeding action. It’s time for researchers to end their debate. The world needs them to focus on the greater goals of stopping catastrophic environmental destruction and improving well-being.” The editorial concludes “…the world is running out of time.”
All articles and related material appearing throughout this website were developed and written by Gregg Walborn.
QualityLifeJungle.net is not a 501(c)(3) entity.
A Global Public Good
Well-Being Across Our Individual & Cultural Differences
A Quality Life
R(evolution)
The political and socioeconomic stability of every country in the world today is cross-linked in a globalization process driven by a gene-environment competition across cultures and societies to create, modify and control the norms and institutions that regulate their social environments.
Here we are in the 21st century, cognitive predators trapped in our social hierarchies, devouring resources in a gluttonous state of status consumption destroying the ecosystem that sustains us.
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Attributions:
Website design and editing by Sally Walborn
Map photo courtesy of Hans Isaacson on Unsplash.com
DNA photo courtesy of Warren Umoh on Unsplash.com
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