Out of Pod Experience

Well to address the topic, I think I heard somewhere that there is some sort of gene that people have that encourages altruism.

Could be completely wrong.

My personal philosophy is that there's nothing after death, therefore you should make the most out of life. Or leave behind a positive impact on your peers or whatever.

Carpe Diem, ************.

I'm pretty sure that's the point of having the gene. Altruists are generally very well liked. People will make sure that the Altruists are safe so that they can help people even more.

What if what's called "altruism" is actually the natural behavior of this species? It hasn't been that long in human history that there was much concept of the individual, independently-going human. Through the many millenia until about their were large-ish cities, everybody was a part of a family, band, clan, or tribe. Those were the units that did things. Sure, individual members had their own personalities and own dramas going on. But being overly selfish in a group that shares resources won't be tolerated for long. You can be an Alpha, which is aggressive and self-aggrandizing. But with that comes putting yourself forth as a leader/caretaker, with altruistic responsibilities for caring for the community. Pure selfish aggression wouldn't work, in the long run. You'd have to balance it with some charisma and care for the community. Kind of hard to play-act fake care for people, over days and days laboring together by day, and around fires at night. People in tight communities smell a rat pretty quick.

If you were consistently selfish and didn't show some care for other members of the group, you could end up ostracized, criminal, or a pariah you could get ousted. Which wouldn't help your chances of survival that much. Kind of hard to survive solo, in a sustenance world. No place to dock up, and tough to catch or grow enough food on your own. You might end up like the mysterious Stone Age guy Oetzi the Ice Man, trying to cross the Alps solo in winter .

So, what if what we term "altruism" is really selfish-ism? If you don't have care for other humans, you can get you ejected from the group. Or tolerated, but pushed out to the margins? That might make sense in the "organisms trying to maximize their own gain and reproduce" clinical view of the biology.

Don't know, but my grandma and grandpa were altruists to us little dumbarses. They didn't seem to have consciously decided to be altruists. They'd just been around a long time, and they were pretty cool to everything and everybody. Just how they'd turned out after 70 80 years of life in this environment.

I'm pretty sure there's a little big giant cloud of whimsical confusion floating all over the delimitation line between the notions survival and comfort. It only takes instinct to form a pack, society is an outcome of complex communication skills slowly eroded or brutally enforced by hierarchic comfort policies.

Meh, the opportunists are already ruling the other institutions.

religion is just a tool to keep the masses at bay and make them accept their lower status

I thought that was what EVE was for?

"Are we bigots for shunning racist people?"

Fixed.

James 315 is Karl Marx reincarnate ?!