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The impression I get from American philanthropists is that, for many of them, it's another way to show off their wealth. It might not directly benefit them, but
by Chathamization 11y ago
The impression I get from American philanthropists is that, for many of them, it's another way to show off their wealth. It might not directly benefit them, but neither does buying diamonds or gold jewelry. With philanthropy you get big galas, get buildings named after you, demonstrate how wealthy you are to your peers, etc.
- hellbanner 11y agoThis is called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory in evolutionary biology.
- LiweiZ 11y agoAny nice book offering an overview of evolutionary biology applied to our society that you'd recommend?
- cherry_su 11y agoNot quite a book, but you might find the materials for this MIT course on Game Theory and Social Behavior insightful: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-11-insights-from-game-theory-into-social-behavior-fall-2013/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-11-insights-from-gam... "We will apply insights from game theory to explain human social behavior, focusing on novel applications which have heretofore been the realm of psychologists and philosophers—for example, why people speak indirectly, in what sense beauty is socially constructed, and where our moral intuitions come from—and eschewing traditional economic applications such as industrial organization or auctions." I learned about signalling theory in this course, among other insights into why society acts the way it does.
- LiweiZ 11y agoThanks. I occasionally follow news from complexity theory and there are many exciting findings. But there are so many hidden gems I could not find out till I learn some key words to make my search meaningful to the search engines.
- r_sreeram 11y agoOn Human Nature by Edward Wilson is supposed to be a classic on this subject (the mix of biology, evolution and sociology). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Human_Nature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Human_Nature
- hellbanner 11y agoRap music.
- LiweiZ 11y ago??