this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
158 points (97.6% liked)
Asklemmy
43963 readers
1194 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There is a book named The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins that talks about this and how this can explain altruistic behaviour. Highly recommended.
Thank you. I know of it, but haven't read it. I probably know a very superficial version of the argument, but I might find a full-length description of it more credible. Even so, it seems more fortunate than inevitable to me.
The book explains how genes are only 'concern' with their own replication and survival... Of course genes aren't intelligent and have actual desires, but genes that are beneficial to their own survival and spread are going to be common in the gene pool, not based on the greater organism or the species.
Even with that, it creates a condition where these selfish genes benefit from cooperation... The critters who act altruistically in the right circumstances will benefit and increase the survivability of their genes.
Also what you mentioned about things being tough causing people to betray each other... This is also discussed both from a prisoner's dilemma (multiple versions of it), and in biology and other game theory examples.
Highly recommended read, and if you do pick it up, I hope you read the latest edition of the book published in 2016, which has extra commentary from the author which is also interesting.
FYI: In this book, Richard Dawkins invented the word meme to rhyme with gene, describing the evolution and spread of ideas... Little did he know, back in the 70's when he wrote the book, that the word he invented to describe the evolution of ideas would evolve into the memes we know today.