From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Wed Jun 05 2002 - 18:24:19 MDT
>
> Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> >
> > I think there's a damned good reason that many societies
> have evolved to
> > favour irrational altruism... it makes the society a nicer
> place to be.
> > Sure, you can then take advantage by not being altruistic,
> by ignoring the
> > polite conventions, etc, but that is kept to a minimum by
> the greater mass
> > of the population being willing to kick your butt in many
> different ways to
> > discourage that behaviour. The tradgedy of the commons can
> be addressed by
> > not abusing the commons in the first place, and cooperating
> in strategies
> > with other likeminded individuals to encourage others to
> not abuse them, and
> > to punish those who do.
>
> ERROR 514: group selection hypothesized
>
Maybe. I would have said it was individual behaviour selected for in the
context that there is always a group.
Should I have replaced phrases such as "many societies have evolved to..."
with "many individual behaviours, which collectively resemble a society,
have evolved in the context of external social influences to...", and "it
makes the society a nicer place to be" with "it improves what the individual
can expect of his/her social environment"?
Emlyn
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