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the self interested human animal?
Zavian
universal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered User regular
universal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered User regular
Recently I've been reading objectivist books, mostly Ayn Rand. I've been wondering something concerning humanity. Is humanity the same as any other living organism on earth? In that likeness I refer to being built as a vehicle for genes to reproduce into similar genes in the self-interest of their nature. Human behavior is based upon the genes reaction to their outside environment, yet always within the self-interest of the vehicle organisms gene? I realize this is a rather simplistic view of humanity. One does not need to do much more than turn on the news to see greed and self-interest within humanity being expressed throughout the world, and it is a thought that continues to come to my mind. I was wondering if anyone else has a point of view they'd like to share regarding this? Or can recommend additional reading based upon this? (I am aware of Dawkins' "Selfish Gene", however have yet to read it)
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Edit: But Ayn Rand is a terrible storyteller and if her ideas were ever put into practice it would mean the death of humanity. If we acted the same way we did in our evolutionary environment with population the way it is now, the population would drop radically. It's a pretty concept but it's unsustainable with the number of people we have on the planet. I suppose she's similar to the anarcho-primitivists in that regard. Both advocate mass genocide.
People need people and other organisms to survive and maintain their current standard of living. You see people killing people on the news because it is the exception, news is about things that are not business as usual, after all.
Oh, that's usually the first book folks read. Heh.
No, the news does not reflect society, the media decide what they consider newsworthy. It is not news when a child dies every 2 seconds, but it is news if Will Smith snaps his fingers and says that a child dies every 2 seconds. The subject is a bit too complex for me to fully explain in a thread about objectivism, so I'll just link to this site that casts a very critical light on news.
As an organism I think we are selfish, we have no qualms killing other organisms for our own survival and we have no trouble treading other creatures' territory. This does not mean that we are top of the chain because all we do all day is kill all other organisms, we actually put great effort in 'helping' other organism to thrive, without us cows, pigs, rice, grain, dogs, cats, horses etcetera wouldn't have such large populations.
Now you might say we have also exterminated various species, but would we have killed the last dodo ever if we had known that it actually *was* the last dodo? The sailors on that island just found some easy food and they were hungry, if they had had more knowledge and resources, they would have taken a few dodos with them and chances are we would have had dodo farms all over the world*. I'm not entirely sure why we are trying to protect some other species though, what use do pandas have to us, other than looking cute? Maybe humans are also very sentimental.
*Someone should write fiction about that. :P
Not getting into the rest of this, but Google News results for:
"murder": 118,000
"heart disease": 23,000
The answer you're looking for is "No."
Well, actually I guess it's "Yes," given the way your question is structured. But you get the idea.
But seriously, stop reading Ayn Rand.
But it lacks structure
I'm sure I'm one of the few assholes in the world who rejects philosophical arguments on the basis of "but the story isn't very good!"
Not at all. It is the responsibility of the true philosopher, not only to educate themselves about the theoretical sciences, but to make a study of rhetoric, so as to communicate the universal principles to the uneducated.
It's like saying that Comic Con represents human culture.
word
Yes. Basically like the republicans doing that "You voted in a black dude so hey we're hip hop now yo!"
It's people who aren't part of culture at large trying to manipulate that culture from an outsider's perspective.
What?
Are you telling me that most chicks don't want to get reamed in the ass!? Porn has lied to me!
Are you serious? Go ask your girlfriend what time you should schedule the three-way and tell me how reflective porn is of society. You keep mistaking what people WANT for what people actually DO. People want to see shit blow up, but you know what? They don't actively go out and blow shit up.
Now, of course, with society in the state it is, which is hardly like that in which we evolved, it cannot at all be guaranteed that our genes are still working completely right. I like to take the opinion that the things we do might have benefited our genes in ancestral environments, but due to our current situation a lot of the things that are coded into our genes or lingering in our memes no longer confer us any advantage.
Really, read Dawkins' Selfish Gene (directed at the OP), because he addresses the point directly. Dawkins also makes the point, however, that we've long since developed the ability and have actively interfered with our genetic desires, with birth control being the most direct example. Which I prefer to believe, because otherwise it would indicate that every choice and desire only derives from a genetic predisposition and there's no such thing as free-will. Kind of an evolution of predestination.
Ayn Rand has a point, but is way, way, WAY too absolutist, and she also seems to operate under the false assumption that evolution can be applied on a social scale. In addition, the opposing view can be very absolutist as well. The key isn't to give everything up all the time for the sake of society, but determining when it's okay to be a little selfish here and there. Of course, people in general don't usually like this gray area and prefer to deal in black and white.
But if you trace all our technology and culture back throughout history, before writing, before language, before complex tool use, then we're no different from any other primate.
So somewhere in our evolutionary history, our brains have evolved such that we have some critical amount of ability to learn behavior from each other.
We're certainly not the only animals that have the ability to learn behavior (most primates do, as well as dogs and cats). We're not even the only animals to have "cultures" based around learned behavior (chimps, for example, have local traditions about methods of digging termites out of wood with sticks.)
But our brains have some critical amount of learning ability that gave rise to some critical amount of culture that, in turn, gave rise to a selective feedback loop for the evolution of culture itself. (In other words, "memes." Culture is transmitted through our brains and learned behavior, and each bit of culture are selected over time.)
I don't think you can separate humanity from our culture. And our culture has a systemic "self-interest" quite separate from our biological self-interest.
Pro-tip: this is not a good way to start an OP.
Impossibly broad and vague question. The only reasonable answer is "yes and no."
Whose nature? The human's, or the gene's?
"Greed" and "self-interest" do not in and of themselves perpetuate the species. Higher primates are social; they help one another; they sometimes act altruistically. And yes they can also be selfish and violent, particularly in areas with scarce natural resources. Yet humans are the only animals - that I know of - that wage war, plot genocide, and kill for trophies.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm pretty sure that some tribes of chimps will fight over territory, including to the point of killing each other's children.
I've heard the same.
Ants will kill each other and destroy other colonies as well.
And eating them, actually.
But facets can reflect.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled program (BTW guys, worst topic ever...).
Edit Add: Second-worst topic ever (right after that one with the chick who ostensibly wants to know why guys want to bang girls).
You even get ants that go in for slavery.
Now, now. In nature, it's not slavery, it's symbiosis.
Even housecats kill for trophies, and those other two are pretty much basic animal instinct on a much larger scale.