"Do Kinder People Have an Evolutionary Advantage?"

http://www.alternet.org/health/145888/do_kinder_people_have_an_evolutionary_advantage?page=1



This article helps to reinforce what I've always believed... and why I could never be an anti-empathetic and selfish republican.

is how many hard-ass, don't give a shit people we interact with on a daily basis -at work, in stores, even friends. Odd - I was bullied a bit when I was young, never cared to be a joiner, popular, etc....but my parents taught me to be myself, believe in myself and be good to people. My wife is the same way. Our two girls ended up the same way. We wouldn't be any different - it's a wonderful way to go through life.

and it is the greatest gift they gave me. Your daughters are very fortunate to have wonderful parents. :)

They've been through a lot. My oldest was in the Peace Corps in Madagascar for two years - midway through she had a medical emergency and we almost lost her. My youngest developed Anorexia at 18, and we almost lost her. Right now, at 28 and 24, they are certainly going in the right direction....and both have great attitudes and treat people with respect and kindness (although, being as liberal as mom and dad, they have to hold their tongues a lot these days...and sometimes fail to do so...again just like mom and dad!).

My wife and I consider every day that they wake up and draw a breath a great gift to us both.

delete

I know I'll give my last quarter to someone who is non aggressive, I've done it. If an aggressive person demands to know where something of mine is, s/he is SOL on getting a straight answer.

However, in a total breakdown when either food or water is extremely scarce, the aggressive asshole might have the advantage, although I'd just wait for him/her to go away before I set up that solar still for water or start wildcrafting for desert plants I know will sustain life, both of which I'll share with other co operative people.

An aggressive asshole may benefit in the short-term, but this type of person will not benefit in the long-term. Besides basic human respect, I will not help an asshole.

They give us the mistaken impression that humans "survive" by screwing one another over. Historically, more humans survive when they cooperate. Indeed, civilization is only possible because of cooperation.

and shows like Springer, always going for the lowest common denominator,
searching for the worst in human nature.

....were more or less cooperative with others and were CERTAINLY cooperative within the tribe.

survivor starts off with teams where you do have to cooperate, at least within your team, to survive.
within the teams, alliances form and there is further cooperation within the alliance.

the format of the show imposes an artificial force on the players that whittles it down one by one. eventually, only one "survives" which pits team vs. team, alliance vs. alliance, and eventually individual vs. individual.

by the end of the contest, it's all about self-interest, but ONLY because the rules have removed all possibility of a mutually beneficial outcome.

do you think the survivor producers would permit the last two people to just agree to end the show and split the money? no, they created conditions of contest designed to preclude cooperation, at least by the end of the contest.


i think it shows people are inherently cooperative -- they had to come up with some pretty unrealistic settings and rules in order to squelch it.

In Nature, there can be many winners (even if there are more losers).

Either way, I believe there is a biological predisposition for certain behaviors such as compassion. And I think it is at the root of much political conflict. This is not a black or white matter, life experience can easily override predisposition.

:hi:

doing outraged cartwheels in her grave. Good article!

:D

I didn't know much about Rand until reading about her in the recent posts here on DU. The more I learned about her the more creeped-out I felt. :)

it makes sense.

If we were all on a spaceship (which we sort of are,) we would fare far better by looking out for each other.

I couldn't agree more.

Mr. Wonderful until she is pregnant.

How many people feel pregnant and screwed over by sweet talking politicians who turn out to be no good ass holes after they are elected?

Then they make abortion illegal. Or make recall elections illegal.

so many of them today.

I rest my case.

you will see a more successful people, community, nation

I don't see this in my town, but I do feel very conflicted, just speaking for myself. I have tried to advise people to stock up on water, food and medical supplies, and they don't do it, and I end up stocking up for all of them, in the event something bad happens. But it makes me angry that I have to do this, that my family and neighbors don't make any effort to prepare for the possibility of the unpredictable.

Sorry to be such a Debbie downer, but the appearance of kindness is what gets you laid.

This may be true for short term gratification but for a deep fulfilling connection you need true kindness and compassion.

If you are a selfish prick you might get laid, but don't expect many people to be around when you need help. You might not live long enough to get laid and you might not live as long as kinder people and therefore not get laid as often.

It seemed like a simple instruction that I might be able to follow. Dana ; )

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/quotes

Are we as a human species bucking the trend as far as self-preservation is concerned or are we furthering our own evolution as part of a communal, self-fostering society?

I'm sure the Randians would LIKE us to devolve into savage, "me-first-fuck-you" individuals, but I like to think that societal competition should be extremely limited and that communal efforts should be praised and encouraged.

Anyone who denies that the great evolutionary advantage we had is co-operation is deluding themselves. Without it, we'd still be scavenging for carrion on the Serengeti Plains.

why do you think there are so many self-centered asshole-ish people at the very top of...well...everything?

the person that has to equate kind with a doormat. i have never been a doormat in my life. i have been kind my whole life, without much of a challenge. and i never get stomped on, lol lol, but i do have a pretty damn good life.

There is a difference between kindness and weakness.

I have had occassion to source obscure parts from some top shops. If you are polite enough to not waste their time and respect their knowledge, they will go out of their way to help you, and the price will be fair. "And call me, let me know how it worked!"

We're successful as a species because we're greedy, and not kind, or altruistic. We're successful because we've expanded, without concern for other species. We're successful because we consume more and more energy from the environment, and want even more. That's utterly selfish. We're successful as a species because we don't share. Any meaningful inch of dirt on this planet is part of a human institution. We're successful as a species because we force and use other species to be the experiment for human progress, and not in anything which resembles a give-and-take relationship.

We're successful, because when you really look at it, we don't care. Kinder. What a total load of crap.

I don't think greed moves us forward. I think creativity, courage and kindness and empathy do. At least that's how we've lived our lives in our family....and we are at peace and pretty damn happy. Without having screwed anyone.

I'm going by what the article said. Success as defined by where we are as a species, in comparison to all other life on this planet. We dominate it.

We don't want "green"(whatever that means) energy because we give a damn. We want it because we think it will give us more energy to play with. That's greed. For good or bad, that's greed.

Within our own species we may be compassionate, here and there. But the overall success of our species is because we consume more, quicker. Think of each species as a corporation, and the planet as the government. The government tries to regulate the corporations. Sometimes, the corporation will find a way to write the legislation which governs them. Our species is the Exxon of the planet. The Wal-Mart of the planet. The Monsanto. The same way Exxon(or whichever one you want to pick) doesn't really like the limits that government regulation places on them, our species doesn't like the physical limits of the planet either. If we lived within those limits, nothing that is March 6th, 2010 would be.

He has been studying these issues for many years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_de_Waal

"The possibility that empathy resides in parts of the brain so ancient that we share them with rats should give pause to anyone comparing politicians with those poor, underestimated creatures."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Animal

this is what you find out when you accept evolution, and look at what it actually means to be a naked ape.
it's a lot more complicated than kind or mean.

along with other aspects of reality.

But it's hilarious watching them try to keep their balls in the air.

If you believe that I have a great deal on pre-owned bridge properties in NY City..

pro-evolutionary?

Looking around, it appears those, as well as other systems, are hell-bent on killing us.

Evolution has no ultimate goal, it is just a process that works toward fitting a given species for the particular environment it is part of.

They're going against human nature. The reason the "ruling class" spreads the message of me being more important than we, because it helps secure their place in society.
Humans have been so successful because we care about each other. In the long run being kind goes far further in creating deep and lasting happiness than being selfish and cruel.

"The meek shall inherit the earth."

And if you have some real assholes in your family you might even lose your inheritance, I've seen that happen several times in my life.

I have no idea why I was looking for this word but I found this etymology:



Not until 1620 would it become "be in rivalry with." In the grand scope of history, that is a recent history.

For many social species there is an equilibrium of sorts between cooperation and competition among individuals.

by Richard Dawkins called "Nice Guys Finish First." From Wiki:

"Nice Guys Finish First (BBC Horizon television series) is a 1986 documentary by Richard Dawkins which discusses selfishness and cooperation, arguing that evolution often favors co-operative behaviour, and focusing especially on the tit for tat strategy of the prisoner's dilemma game. The film is approximately 45 minutes long and was produced by Jeremy Taylor.

The twelfth chapter in Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene (added in the second edition, 1989) is also named Nice Guys Finish First and explores similar material.

Overview
In the opening scene, Richard Dawkins responds very precisely to what he views as a misrepresentation of his first book The Selfish Gene. In particular the response of the right wing for using it as justification for social darwinism and laissez-faire economics (free-market capitalism). Richard Dawkins has examined this issue throughout his whole career and focused much of the recent documentary, The Genius of Charles Darwin on this very issue.

The concept of reciprocal altruism is a central theme of this documentary. Dawkins also examines the tragedy of the commons and the dilemma that it presents. He uses the large area of common land Port Meadow in Oxford, England which has been hurt by overgrazing as an example of the tragedy of the commons. Fourteen academics as well as experts in game theory submitted their own computer programs to compete in a tournament to see who would win in the prisoner's dilemma. The winner was tit for tat. A program which is based on "equal retaliation" and Dawkins illustrates the four conditions of tit for tat.

1.Unless provoked, the agent will always cooperate.
2.If provoked, the agent will retaliate.
3.The agent is quick to forgive.
4.The agent must have a good chance of competing against the opponent more than once."

For anyone interested, you can view this documentary (5 parts) here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Sadochrist#p/u/14/CAbMTCoLtR0

and it spreads from one person to another through touch," - Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist

I believe this speaks to our interconnected nature. We are not independent but dependent on each other and that being kind is literally good for us and helps facilitate our connections with one another.

http://www.ed2010.com/files/images/helping+hand_0.thumbnail.jpg

apparently wishful thinking laid out in this article.

I would LIKE it to be true, but from the current state of our nation I would say that sociopaths have the evolutionary advantage and NO structure We the People can create can stop them or even slow them down at all.

Robber Barons in at the beginning of the 20th Century, reduced in power by the New Deal, now dismantled and we have Robber Barons again.

The same situation with our "Media as Watchdog".

The same for colonized nations, who broke free in that great en masse independence of the 1960s.

Recolonized by WTO, IMF and all the rest of the "economic hit men".

I WISH this article were true, but the current data suggests just the opposite.

It suggest that human beings will continue to struggle vainly against the usually fatal (to everyone else) combination of the Rich, Mean & Gullible, who are by far the largest group of the three.

We will break free now and again, in some countries, for short periods of time, but eventually the sociopaths will find a new skin in which to dress an old snake.

with people being the biggest asses, selfish, greed and self centeredness, look at the mess we are living in and how much worse it is getting. seems to confirm the theory that ugly is not condusive to a good life for the whole

We are just saying it in different ways.

Yes, I agree with you it's not conducive to live as a whole.

So what? Human life as a whole will probably be extinct in 5000 years, maybe a lot less.

I am just saying what reality is in terms of the evolutionary adaption, since the biggest asses of humanity, authoritarians and sociopaths, are once again back in the saddle.

It's just that that evolutionary adaption is a dead end.

So I think we are ultimately in agreement.

You have to be selfish and kind depending which one benefits you the most in the given Context.

i want it all, by giving others respect, love, altruism, it ultimately gives me and rewards me the most. so i know, by giving to others, i am receiving everything i need. ultimate in selfish

"The Great Dictator"

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

- Charlie Chaplin