On Dec 24, 2007 1:22 PM, Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Dec 24, 2007, at 17:34 , rob brown wrote: > > When a bee stings, it kills the bee. Do you know of anything like that in > an animal that reproduces directly? > > Yes, unfortunately at the very moment many soldiers at their best > reproducing age give their lives for their country. Worker bees are likely > to die when they sting a soft skinned large animal. Humans are not that > radical - in most war situations individual soldiers have a reasonable > probability to stay alive. But often sacrificing one's own life in order to > protect others is praised and thereby encouraged, and happens in real life. >
Well, we hear about it when it happens...that's part of it being praised and encouraged. I doubt it happens all that likely unless they really didn't have the option of surviving. In the case of the stinger, I was asking if you knew of any morphological (not behavioral) feature of a non-eusocial animal that kills the animal when used. The only ones I can think of are part of the reproductive process ( i.e. male spider dies when it mates, etc). Behaviorally....sure, there are anecdotal outliers to everything. But the behavior I see 1000 times as powerful in humans is one of self preservation. Eusocial animals only have a self preservation instinct as far as it preserves the colony. Period. So what percentage of humans do you think voluntarily give their lives for someone else that isn't direct offspring? 1 in 10 million? I know it's all touchy feely and warms the heart to think the best of humans, but my observation of human behaviour aligns quite well with what I would expect based on how they reproduce. Altruism obviously exists....when there is a chance of reciprocation or where convincing others that being altruistic has value in itself. In a secret ballot situation, I'm just not seeing it. Regardless, it just strikes me as an incredible, irresponsible cop-out for voting reform advocates to suggest a method that expects voters to just play nice. It is to me the equivalent of a computer security professional suggesting that studies of psychology show that people generally don't want to hack computers. What problem are you solving again?
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