In a message dated 11/4/00 1:05:44 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<<
>It is
>human nature that individuals pursue self interest and greed often at the
>expense of the greateer good, and cannot think pas one generation
>apparently.
What evidence do we have that this is a deep-seated universal truth and not
just the version of reality we're seeing through our modern Western
capitalism-informed perspective?
Well , this is a basic truth for all creatures. What you have described -
individuals acting in their own short term self interest - is at the root of
all behavior in which replicators compete and cooperate. Even the proponents
of complexity theory will grant that this paradign is a core portion of all
life. What they argue is that cooperation is an extremely important strategy
for short term success. I think you get a little glib with your cultural
relativism Gord (see your equating of the US and USSR that Dan so forcefully
argued against). It seems to me that individuals in all cultures behave in
this way to the extent that they can. A good read on this subject is
"Nonzero". by Robert Wright. He argues that over history there has been
progress and makes a good case for the value of information as the engine of
this progress. He argues against the notion of the noble savage as does
Jarrod Diamond who has a much more pessimistic view of the world than does
Wright.
