[FRIAM] Enlightened Self Interest: was Help for texas

[gepr ⛧]

On September 10, 2017 12:28:41 PM PDT, Steven A Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>it is built into us as humans/mammals/vertebrates/life-itself to be self-centered, to look after our own personal well-being before we look to that of others.   Our tribal/clan dunbar-number-scale affinities may cause us to be locally altruistic at times and look after family/friends/neighbors/tribe before ourselves, but beyond that our instincts are xenophobic.

I couldn't disagree more. It's a common kind of social Darwinism to think that we are innately wired to be selfish. And as we've seen going round and round on this mailing list our understanding of evolution is childish at best. So there's no convincing evidence, that we can coherently package, that proves your assertion: that it is built into us to be self-centered.

To be clear I'm not claiming one way or the other, that we are innately wired to be altruistic or that we are innately wired to be self-centered. I just think it's reasonable to let biologists continue to study the issue(s) and if they come up with the biological explanation for altruistic behavior then great. If they don't and we demonstrate that we're all ultimately self-centered then great. But I think it's a stretch to say that we've settled all of that science at this point.

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⛧glen⛧