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>It's just my impression, and I could be mistaken, but this sounds overly pragmatic. Living life this way leads to getting entrenched in local maxima. You find

>It's just my impression, and I could be mistaken, but this sounds overly pragmatic. Living life this way leads to getting entrenched in local maxima. You find a lot of people who suffer from severe social maladjustment and view life as a zero-sum game all over the place (I blame the rise of using game theory to model real situations without a finite turn limit). It's very rare you'll be able to "argue" these people into conceptualizing other humans as unique individuals, it pretty much always comes from problematic upbringings

Waterluvian 4y ago
I feel this is far more primal than we might think. That it’s wired into some people that everything has to be about, “how does this benefit me?” And I think this would be unsurprising. That sounds like a healthy evolutionary trait. I think there are people that for one reason or another can overcome this instinct and see a bigger picture of society. And I think these groups generally coalesce for reinforcement and forms of ideological security. Then they give these groups names.
- d23 4y ago
  Empathy appears to be just as wired into us and evolutionarily advantageous for us as a species. Without it, I don't think we could have formed societies or even tribes in the first place.
  - SQueeeeeL 4y ago
    Ya, humans main strat in the wilderness was being cool to each other and forming strong tribal units. But if your care givers have low empathy, that typically is passed onto the offspring, which is the mechanism behind generational trama
  - mirror_neuron 4y ago
    My (unsubstantiated, off-the-cuff) theory is that empathy/altruism and selfishness are held in equilibrium. Altruistic traits lead to cooperation, which leads to civilization and surplus, which makes selfishness less damaging to society (and thus more adaptive for the individual). Too many selfish individuals damage the trust that leads to that surplus, which keeps the number of the selfish in check.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I feel this is far more primal than we might think. That it’s wired into some people that everything has to be about, “how does this benefit me?” And I think this would be unsurprising. That sounds like a healthy evolutionary trait. I think there are people that for one reason or another can overcome this instinct and see a bigger picture of society. And I think these groups generally coalesce for reinforcement and forms of ideological security. Then they give these groups names.

d23 4y ago
Empathy appears to be just as wired into us and evolutionarily advantageous for us as a species. Without it, I don't think we could have formed societies or even tribes in the first place.
- SQueeeeeL 4y ago
  Ya, humans main strat in the wilderness was being cool to each other and forming strong tribal units. But if your care givers have low empathy, that typically is passed onto the offspring, which is the mechanism behind generational trama
- mirror_neuron 4y ago
  My (unsubstantiated, off-the-cuff) theory is that empathy/altruism and selfishness are held in equilibrium. Altruistic traits lead to cooperation, which leads to civilization and surplus, which makes selfishness less damaging to society (and thus more adaptive for the individual). Too many selfish individuals damage the trust that leads to that surplus, which keeps the number of the selfish in check.