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> you cannot compete with others if you have a conscience and they don't. This is self evidently true, though. A conscience is a constraint on behavior. People

by vsnf 3y ago

> you cannot compete with others if you have a conscience and they don't. This is self evidently true, though. A conscience is a constraint on behavior. People without this constraint can accomplish more things. Of course, they may end up suffering for their actions, but it's a surefire way to short-term success, and not unlikely to lead to long-term success as well.

trashtester 3y ago
> This is self evidently true, though. I absolutely disagree. Conscience, empathy, shame and similar emotions/instincts that encourage pro-social behavior would only have developed if it lead to higher reproductive fitness for those who had them compared to those who didn't. For instance, only a very small percentage of people are psychopaths. If we look at the average life outcome for psychopaths, we discover that while some of them may be super-successful, we also find a lot of them as social outcasts or in prison. And if they live in areas like law enforcements, they're also more likely to get killed. I would say the reason should be obvious. People without these guardrails on behavior may get away with anti-social behavior for a time, but eventually people figure them out. This leads to all sorts of active and passive punishment, ranging from difficulty making friends or holding on to a job all the way to life in prison or execution. SOME people may negate the downsides by acting in a super-rational way. But this only works for people who are both highly intelligent and who also have very good impulse control. But for most people, having at least moderate levels of pro-social instincts/emotions will be just as beneficial for themselves as for the people around them.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  Genetic fitness != financial success. Moreover, ancestral environment != modern environment. Not saying you're wrong, but it's not a straightforward application of evolutionary thinking.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    I was interpreting "this world" a bit more widely than just the work environment in high level Academia. There are certainly environments where anti-social behavior can be optimal. But there are also a LOT of environments where pro-social environments are rewarded. Includig, but not restricted to, within families. Anyway, you're right that we're not living in our ancestral environment. But I don't think we're in a world that actually rewards anti-social behavior less (EDIT) than much of our evolutionary history. Rather, I think cynical outlooks like that of the OP actually appears for reasons such as: 1) People who are themselves anti-social who either actually think that everyone else are the same, or at least try to normalize such tendencies. 2) People who, during early development, had a very naîve world view and then when faced with reality, became so disillusioned that they went to the other extreme. I think the vast majority of people on earth today still live in environments where some amount of compassion, conscience and empathy are useful traits (for themselves). However, in a lot of cases, it can also be useful to have the ability to turn such emotions on or off depending on the context. Once we start to think of some other group of people (or individuals) as either a mortal enemy or a kind of prey, a lot of us can reach such an off-switch when dealing with them.
- everforward 3y ago
  > Conscience, empathy, shame and similar emotions/instincts that encourage pro-social behavior would only have developed if it lead to higher reproductive fitness for those who had them compared to those who didn't. It's a classic prisoners dilemma. In aggregate, the best option is cooperation. For an individual, the best option is betrayal in a society where everyone else follows the rules. Betrayers can't become dominant because the worst option for both the individual and society is everyone being a betrayer. It ruins social cohesion, so there's no synergies to reap rewards from.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    > For an individual, the best option is betrayal ... Well, this applies to prisoner's dilemma games if you know exactly how many times you will "play" the game with a given other player, including the case where you will only play one time. But for repeated prisoner's dilemma games, where you don't know what games is the last against a given player, a tit-for-tat strategy massively dominates an always-defect strategy. Humans have evolved in environments where repeated prisoner's dilemma situation is common, and have evolved emotions such as empathy and consciousness for interactions with cooperative agents. We ALSO have evolved (to a lesser or greater degree) the ability to turn such emotions off when dealing with people who attempt the always-defect strategy (such as psycopaths). In fact, psychpathic behavior only becomes viable in populations that have been using tit-for-tat for so long that they've "forgotten" how to punish defectors (ie almost all agents switched to always-cooperate). But once you introduce a few always-defect agents into the population, the tit-for-tat agents will soon dominate again. At least for the brain wireing for interacting with members of our own "tribe". When dealing with people outside our "tribe", it's much more likely that we will only play them once, and in such cases, always-defect may indeed dominate. However, there is also a tribe-level game, where the tribe can act as agents. And in tribe-vs-tribe games, depending on circumstances, both tit-for-tat and always-defect can be optimal strategies. Always-defect can, ultimately, lead to genocide, while tit-for-tat can lead to alliances, trade and intermarriage. People who think that always-defect is always the optimal mode of behavior tend to be people who either don't consider it for their close relations, or who have very few close relations. For instance, someone who lives alone in the city and is either unemployed or tend to have purely transactional work relations. What such people tend to forget, is that there is an artificial presence in the city, called the police, that can impose a level of safety that can remove the need for high trust, pro-socal relationships. In a society with police, all you have to do is to know what behavior lands you in prison, and otherwise you can be a selfish bastard. As soon as you remove the police, loners like that are free game for "predators", and only those who have a "tribe" have any kind of protection. Such a "tribe" can be a clan in an Afghan mountain area or it can be a gang in a high-crime city. While a gang member may have little to no empathy or conscience when dealing with outsiders, maintaining good relations with other clan members can be critical (Depending on what specific gang it is.)
randysalami 3y ago
A constraint can lead to more power e.g. the power of abstractions in code. On a more grounded note, having a constraint (a creed or code that limits you) can be a visible signal to others that you’re worth following. With these bonds strengthened by self-imposed constraint, you can accomplish more together than you could alone but unfettered by limitation (debatable). This is a theme in many movies and stories where the main character’s restraint inspires others to great deeds and gives them the resolve to do the unthinkable (Star Wars). Of course, a person with no conscience can always feign this restraint… (Palpatine)
mistrial9 3y ago
congratulations - a completely self-centered analysis amidst a world of systems of systems
javajosh 3y ago
>This is self evidently true, though. I think you mean "this is intuitively true" because, like so many intuitive conclusions, it is wrong. Looking at animal behavior, it's intuitively true that organisms will only win if they are selfish, and yet selfless behavior has evolved in countless species. Another intuitive truth is that when you have a powerful species of predator that can kill prey at will, that they will decimate the prey population and end up dying off from lack of food. Yet most ecosystems can and do support both predators and prey in equilibrium. In business, it's intuitively true that it would be stupid to make another fast-food hamburger business in the presence of McDonalds - yet Carl's Junior/Hardees did very well doing just that. Counter-examples abound to the intuitive conclusion. One of the best habits you can form is the habit of questioning your intuition.

by vsnf 3y ago

trashtester 3y ago

> This is self evidently true, though. I absolutely disagree. Conscience, empathy, shame and similar emotions/instincts that encourage pro-social behavior would only have developed if it lead to higher reproductive fitness for those who had them compared to those who didn't. For instance, only a very small percentage of people are psychopaths. If we look at the average life outcome for psychopaths, we discover that while some of them may be super-successful, we also find a lot of them as social outcasts or in prison. And if they live in areas like law enforcements, they're also more likely to get killed. I would say the reason should be obvious. People without these guardrails on behavior may get away with anti-social behavior for a time, but eventually people figure them out. This leads to all sorts of active and passive punishment, ranging from difficulty making friends or holding on to a job all the way to life in prison or execution. SOME people may negate the downsides by acting in a super-rational way. But this only works for people who are both highly intelligent and who also have very good impulse control. But for most people, having at least moderate levels of pro-social instincts/emotions will be just as beneficial for themselves as for the people around them.

hackerlight 3y ago
Genetic fitness != financial success. Moreover, ancestral environment != modern environment. Not saying you're wrong, but it's not a straightforward application of evolutionary thinking.
- trashtester 3y ago
  I was interpreting "this world" a bit more widely than just the work environment in high level Academia. There are certainly environments where anti-social behavior can be optimal. But there are also a LOT of environments where pro-social environments are rewarded. Includig, but not restricted to, within families. Anyway, you're right that we're not living in our ancestral environment. But I don't think we're in a world that actually rewards anti-social behavior less (EDIT) than much of our evolutionary history. Rather, I think cynical outlooks like that of the OP actually appears for reasons such as: 1) People who are themselves anti-social who either actually think that everyone else are the same, or at least try to normalize such tendencies. 2) People who, during early development, had a very naîve world view and then when faced with reality, became so disillusioned that they went to the other extreme. I think the vast majority of people on earth today still live in environments where some amount of compassion, conscience and empathy are useful traits (for themselves). However, in a lot of cases, it can also be useful to have the ability to turn such emotions on or off depending on the context. Once we start to think of some other group of people (or individuals) as either a mortal enemy or a kind of prey, a lot of us can reach such an off-switch when dealing with them.
everforward 3y ago
> Conscience, empathy, shame and similar emotions/instincts that encourage pro-social behavior would only have developed if it lead to higher reproductive fitness for those who had them compared to those who didn't. It's a classic prisoners dilemma. In aggregate, the best option is cooperation. For an individual, the best option is betrayal in a society where everyone else follows the rules. Betrayers can't become dominant because the worst option for both the individual and society is everyone being a betrayer. It ruins social cohesion, so there's no synergies to reap rewards from.
- trashtester 3y ago
  > For an individual, the best option is betrayal ... Well, this applies to prisoner's dilemma games if you know exactly how many times you will "play" the game with a given other player, including the case where you will only play one time. But for repeated prisoner's dilemma games, where you don't know what games is the last against a given player, a tit-for-tat strategy massively dominates an always-defect strategy. Humans have evolved in environments where repeated prisoner's dilemma situation is common, and have evolved emotions such as empathy and consciousness for interactions with cooperative agents. We ALSO have evolved (to a lesser or greater degree) the ability to turn such emotions off when dealing with people who attempt the always-defect strategy (such as psycopaths). In fact, psychpathic behavior only becomes viable in populations that have been using tit-for-tat for so long that they've "forgotten" how to punish defectors (ie almost all agents switched to always-cooperate). But once you introduce a few always-defect agents into the population, the tit-for-tat agents will soon dominate again. At least for the brain wireing for interacting with members of our own "tribe". When dealing with people outside our "tribe", it's much more likely that we will only play them once, and in such cases, always-defect may indeed dominate. However, there is also a tribe-level game, where the tribe can act as agents. And in tribe-vs-tribe games, depending on circumstances, both tit-for-tat and always-defect can be optimal strategies. Always-defect can, ultimately, lead to genocide, while tit-for-tat can lead to alliances, trade and intermarriage. People who think that always-defect is always the optimal mode of behavior tend to be people who either don't consider it for their close relations, or who have very few close relations. For instance, someone who lives alone in the city and is either unemployed or tend to have purely transactional work relations. What such people tend to forget, is that there is an artificial presence in the city, called the police, that can impose a level of safety that can remove the need for high trust, pro-socal relationships. In a society with police, all you have to do is to know what behavior lands you in prison, and otherwise you can be a selfish bastard. As soon as you remove the police, loners like that are free game for "predators", and only those who have a "tribe" have any kind of protection. Such a "tribe" can be a clan in an Afghan mountain area or it can be a gang in a high-crime city. While a gang member may have little to no empathy or conscience when dealing with outsiders, maintaining good relations with other clan members can be critical (Depending on what specific gang it is.)

randysalami 3y ago

A constraint can lead to more power e.g. the power of abstractions in code. On a more grounded note, having a constraint (a creed or code that limits you) can be a visible signal to others that you’re worth following. With these bonds strengthened by self-imposed constraint, you can accomplish more together than you could alone but unfettered by limitation (debatable). This is a theme in many movies and stories where the main character’s restraint inspires others to great deeds and gives them the resolve to do the unthinkable (Star Wars). Of course, a person with no conscience can always feign this restraint… (Palpatine)

mistrial9 3y ago

congratulations - a completely self-centered analysis amidst a world of systems of systems

javajosh 3y ago

>This is self evidently true, though. I think you mean "this is intuitively true" because, like so many intuitive conclusions, it is wrong. Looking at animal behavior, it's intuitively true that organisms will only win if they are selfish, and yet selfless behavior has evolved in countless species. Another intuitive truth is that when you have a powerful species of predator that can kill prey at will, that they will decimate the prey population and end up dying off from lack of food. Yet most ecosystems can and do support both predators and prey in equilibrium. In business, it's intuitively true that it would be stupid to make another fast-food hamburger business in the presence of McDonalds - yet Carl's Junior/Hardees did very well doing just that. Counter-examples abound to the intuitive conclusion. One of the best habits you can form is the habit of questioning your intuition.