11 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2023
    1. the neo-Darwinists were practically driven to their conclusions by their initial assumption: that science demands a rational explanation, that this means attributing rational motives to all behavior, and that a truly rational motivation can only be one that, if observed in humans, would normally be described as selfishness or greed.
  2. Oct 2022
    1. this course considers at the very end the question of the essence of thereligion: Through all this change, does anything remain constant?

      Religion co-evolves with the people, places, and times in which it exists. Much like human genes, it works at the level of the individual, the local group, the larger groups and communities (of both the religion itself as well as the polities around it), and when applicable at the scale of all people on the planet.

      The Selfish Religion: How far might we take this religion/gene analogy with respect to Richard Dawkins' thesis (1976). Does religion act more like a gene that is part of the particular person or is it more like a virus which inserts itself? The latter may be closer as one can pick and choose a religion rather than it being a core part of their genetic identity.

      (highlight: anchor only)

  3. Aug 2022
  4. Apr 2022
  5. Jan 2022
    1. The scientific consensus has shifted so much that Richard Dawkins, in the 30th-anniversary edition of “The Selfish Gene,” wrote that he could just as accurately have called his book “The Cooperative Gene.” Perhaps decades of our economic and political lives would have been much less harmful if he had.

      I do like the more positive framing of "The Cooperative Gene."

  6. Dec 2021
    1. In other words, the palette of social organization was rich and diverse from the beginning: early humans, like us, were constantly in the business of shaping and reshaping their social arrangements, with evidence of conscious embracing and rejection of all sorts of social forms.

      In an ever-evolving manner, humans are constantly working at shaping and reshaping ourselves.

      How does our drive to have and establish identity cause us to evolve as a species? Is identity the root gene that is driving change within society? Is there an identeme (a tacit portmanteau of identity + gene) that works at both the local level as well as at the group level? How might this fit into the selfish gene theory?

  7. Aug 2021
  8. Jul 2021
  9. Jun 2020
  10. Feb 2019
    1. o far only as it is beneficial {l,16�(' or hurtful to the true believers.

      By nature, humans are selfish. We're always thinking, whether consciously or not, "what's in it for me?" We deem actions that have a potential benefit to us as praiseworthy, while label unbeneficial actions as hurtful.

  11. Oct 2018
    1. Except that the aggregate selfish behavior of millions of people tagging billions of photos means that the public tag pages make entertaining surfing for everyone.

      Reading this reminds me of some of Brad Enslen and Kicks Condor's conversations about discovery on the net.

      How can one leverage selfish behaviour to the benefit of all?