4 ms·

Genetic fitness != financial success. Moreover, ancestral environment != modern environment. Not saying you're wrong, but it's not a straightforward application

• 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.