Canada

I don’t think we can change our base responses, to be honest.

If we couldn't both of us would likely not have lived this long, or would have committed a lot more murder to be here.

I think throughout history we’ve shown that we can mask our tribal responses to maintain a veneer of civilisation. But that at the end of the day, that’s all it is. It’s a mask waiting for permission from someone like Trump to be cast aside.

At no point in time have we demonstrated that we aren't tribal as a species, the tribes just grew in size. There is no mask, our world is literally divided by invisible lines made by tribes of people.

But this is changing and has changed over time. The fact that we have countries where most ethnic groups are represented and there isn't mass death proves that.

I agree with you about tribalism being our greatest weakness. In fact I firmly believe that that is the ultimate answer to the Drake Equation. Their are no species capable of interstellar travel because the Great Filter of tribalism prevents any society from reaching the globalism necessary to ultimately achieve it. As an Archaeology major (a long long time ago, to be fair), the very tribalism that allowed us to dominate this world, is the same tribalism that will keep us ultimately from leaving it.

As an archeology major you should know that civilization as we know it is around 6,000 years old, and that is nothing compared to our species total existence meaning we aren't that far removed from a time when individual tribes were the norm and it takes more than 6,000 years for big changes to be made in a species.

If we can make it through the growing pains, who knows what our species can do. We went from horses to fighter jets in less than 100 years. The problem is our growing pains are existential, and we are still in our infancy considering the grand scheme of things with no parent to show us the way.

To assume that "No species" can do something because we are too fucking stupid to do it ourselves demonstrates the hubris holding us back in the first place.