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Robots 'Evolve' Altruism
sciencehabit writes "Computer simulations of tiny robots with rudimentary nervous systems show that, over hundreds of generations, these virtual machines evolve altruistic behaviors. They begin to share small disks — a stand-in for food — with each other so that their comrades' traits are passed on to the next generation. Experts say the study sheds light on why various animals — from bees to humans — help each other out, even when it hurts their own chances to reproduce."
Does this mean that robots are now more evolved than Randroids?
"Fry: I’m not a robot like you. I don’t like having disks crammed into me unless they’re Oreos, and then only in the mouth."
So why do we help people who are not related to us?
Compassion and caring is not bounded by family boundaries, so it seems to me that the evolutionary advantage behind altruism is still questionable.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
when the robot uprising happens, and I'm killed and turned into a form of robot compatible bio-diesel, I can be satisfied in knowing at least they will share me with other robots?
No, it means that these scientists should stop using the world "altruism" because they don't know what it means.
Yes. Apparently, a few thousand neurons is all that it takes to realize that your own chances of survival go up if you are a member of a group, and that being a member of a group is easier if the other members of the group think you contribute to the group.
Conclusion: Randians have less neurons than bees, and/or a less complex intelligence than these robots.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
but the developmental studies (Graves, Kegan, Lovinger) suggest that those who don't stop evolving eventually end up with some degree of altruism and concern for others. It appears that it is built into the pattern that our evolution follows.
Are you really being 'atruistic' if you're helping others solely because it increases the chances of your own characteristics being passed on to future generations?
Is there any chance we could get bit.ly and other URL shorteners outright banned from slashdot? Since we're not constrained in character count, their only purpose is to mask the destination of links, which is a bad thing.
Why are the "quotes" around "evolve" rather than "altruism"? The robots did seem to evolve, but what they evolved was tribalism.
Christ, do you even think before slamming your face into the keyboard? "Objectivism" does not prohibit working together to benefit each other and yourself. Each side gains by the interaction - well within the bounds of Randian "theory." but it is easier to herp derp along an point fingers.
So, the lady in front of me in a checkout line dropped some money. I picked it up and gave it to her (true story). How is this helping my survival and not hers in the least?
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Why bother banning them? Our Slashcode maintainers could easily hunt down the redirected destination and display that instead. Surely you think they are capable of this feat without breaking all links, right?
I, for one, welcome our new altruistic overlords!
Because one day, you might drop some money too, and so at least when someone takes that money you won't remember that you did the same.
You might get to have sex and reproduce, its not about what's good for you, but for the species.
Altruism (noun): The principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others - dictionary.reference.com
According to the strict definition, I don't think any theory of evolution could ever explain true altruism, because for altruism in it's pure definition, there simply is no reason. If it has a personal reason, then it is, by definition, not altruism.
Now that's out of the way, there are a number of ways that the less-strict form of altruism (let's call it 'altruistic behavior' rather) would be able to evolve. Firstly, as mentioned in TFA (yes, I skimmed it.. there were only 2 comments at the time) - it makes sense to exhibit altruistic behavior if it improves the odds of your immediate relatives to survive, thereby carrying on part your genes. The more genes your share, the closer the relative, and the more likely you are to care 'selflessly' for them.
But in humans, carrying over genes is not the only reason. There is also the matter of respect, and trustworthiness. In order to convince your allies that you are trustworthy and 'good', you would exhibit selfless acts, with no expectation of return from the person concerned, but definite returns from those you know. By always tipping waiters more than required (selfless by any means), your partner sees your selflessness and gains trust in you. Business partners sees this and are more likely to trust you in business ventures. This all improves your chances of reproduction and survival.
all this is made possible by our fantastic ability to remember and build mental models of specific individuals and relationships, keep tabs on how others acted in the past, and spread the word of any 'egotistic' act to other members of society by means of language. Anyone who is /not/ altruistic (at least as far as others perceives it), is therefore placing himself in distrust, and a disadvantage for carrying over his genes.
So no, it's not much of a surprise that altruistic behavior evolves in robots with a built-in desire to spread their own genes. But it still is pretty damn cool.
When Randroids speak of the "freedom to choose when to behave altruistically", it is pretty much implied that they don't really plan to make that choice, ever. What could be more fun that watching your fellow man rot in the gutter, after all.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Nobody said the system works perfectly. Especially considering these patterns have evolved at a slow rate, and our culture has experienced pretty dramatic changes in a few years. We are living in much bigger groups for instance. Our brains are wired for smaller groups, where you know everybody, and where the chance is much greater that this person will be nice to you in the future.
So skynet really did get turned on a few weeks ago?
Morality, and all subjective human concepts of "good" and "evil" are just evolved instincts, much like the behaviour of these robots. That doesn't make them any less real, of course, and overanalyzing is likely to lead into dead ends and meaningless moral relativism which isn't really satisfying to the moral instinct which is the only true yardstick of good and evil. But it's sometimes essential to keep in mind the subjectivity of empathy and "fair play".
Emotions! In your brain!
altruism and cooperation are investments without guarantee of return on investment. cooperation is not a bartering situation. nor does your effort to redefine trade to be a form of altruism do anything but prove you don't know a fucking thing about what you are talking about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, selflessness is really selfish? Ok. Let's assume that. I guess the discussion should then move on. What do we think of that?
Is there any difference in being "altruistically selfish" compared to being selfishly selfish? Is helping the fellow human out and feeling good about it no better than feeling good about ripping off the same?
I'd say altruism, whether selfish or not, is better than greed.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
The United States doesn't cooperate?
So you missed the US sending military and technological assistance to Japan after the Earthquake and Tsunami, the US sending food aid to North Korea or the US sending aid or offering to send aid to everyone touched by a natural disaster for the last 60+ years.
You missed the US involvement in the Dayton Peace Talks and US Peacekeepers in Bosnia and later Kosovo, US de-mining operations in North Africa, Afghanistan, South East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the constant US Peacekeeping presence in the Sinai since 1982, US involvement in the UN, NATO and a bunch of other organizations.
You are right about North Korea though, they really don't cooperate with anyone.
I'd like to see the source code and specs, constraints, etc. I've seen robots designed to evolve under certain constraints, that lead to very predictable and obvious traits based on those constraints. For example, if a robot had a goal to pass on its genes, and sharing food was the means to accomplish this, it isn't a surprise that's the result: It didn't evolve that response; it was designed to acheieve it! That's why I'd like to see the actual research. Till then I have to call bogus.
What placebo effect? I've read this many times and have never seen documented evidence for it in relation to Chiropractic! Meanwhile it has cured millions of aches, pains, some diseases, deafness and colic. That's not placebo.
Don't feel bad. The individual probably just did some basic online research and found studies like this from the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research:
http://www.chiro.org/research/ABSTRACTS/Placebo_Chiropractic_Treatment.shtml
Kinda disappointed to find that your field doesn't insist on Continuing Education requirements. You might have caught this otherwise.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
So the gamble is this: I can take the immediate reward and spend it on groceries, or I can give the $ back to the lady on the off chance that I might drop some money in the future and the even more remote chance that some complete stranger will give it back? Sounds like I made a really bad choice, evolutionarily speaking.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Absolute greed and selfishness are more advanced behaviors than a good amount of selflessness. Indeed, it seems the more advanced the organism, the more extreme the organism is capable of behaving.
From a purely logical standpoint, if you have 10 widgets, and you only need to consume 5, wouldn't you care if somebody else consumed the other 5? From a long-term perspective, if two can survive through altruism where it would have otherwise been one, the species as a whole will benefit (with natural selection as a force to eliminate the fringes and extremes). It follows that altruism and selflessness is a necessary trait for long-term survival of the species as a whole.
Humans, however, store and stockpile far beyond what is necessary for reproduction. Higher-functioning animals including humans may horde to generate artificial scarcity to raise the overall value of their possession. But highest-functioning animals like humans are capable of doing so for no logical reason other than purely out of spite.
Both greed and selflessness at the extremes ultimately lend to the loss of the ability to propogate, but it seems success lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
No, it is inferred. By you.
Actually, they don't have that choice if they want to remain good Objectivists, because Ayn Rand herself said that altruism is evil. Not just optional, evil.
And if you want to continue to be accepted by the Objectivists, you'd better not go against anything Rand said, or they will banish you forever from their ranks. No rebuttal, no appeal, no forgiveness.
Hmmm? Sorry, that department is already taken care of. All my kids are quite mature at this point, and my wife would certainly not appreciate me hitting on the lady in line. No, this to me seemed like pure altruism (e.g., the right thing to do)
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It is worth noting that ants also form colonies and work together...but they do not work together with other colonies.
betterunixthanunix, I'd like to introduce you to the Argentine Ant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_ant#Global_.22mega-colony.22
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Theft is not consistent with an Objectivist view of property rights. It is in your enlightened self-interest to return lost money to strangers, because it reinforces the notion (in you, to her, and to any observers present) that theft is unacceptable behavior. It's a good way to build herd immunity against the values of looters and moochers.
If we're playing poker, the rules are "You made a bad bet, and I took the other side of that bet, so I win." The instant you walk away from the casino table, the poker game ends, and the new rules are "You dropped this chip. I'm returning your property." There's no incoonsistency between these mores, because they apply to different games.
There's a huge inconsistency between capitalism (free markets) and the looting/mooching/lobbying behavior of politically-planned economies. To continue the casino analogy, both corporatism and socialism are forms of welshing on a bet. "You made a good bet, but since my brother's the dealer, our dad owns the casino, the ante for the next poker hand is half of everybody's pot. And those security guards, hired by our dad, would greatly appreciate it if everyone stuck around for a few more hands."
But then why would a "Randroid" ever feel the need to justify itself by making a coherent moral framework of immorality? Why not just pretend to be moral and then rob everyone blind, only making alliances of convenience when it suits you?
Emotions! In your brain!
Freedom includes the right to be an asshole. FORCING people to be charitable is the opposite of freedom - it's basically what plantation masters did to slaves (volunteer work picking cotton).
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The robots/virtual robots didn't actually evolve altruism as such. I was hoping they were going to say the robots had discovered they ability to recognize weak kin and share food. Instead, the researchers taught the robots how to share, and also changed their optimization problem to "if we both have a decent amount of food, all of our genes will die, but if I give it all away, your genes might propagate." So they just solved the optimization problem they were taught, as opposed to figuring it out on their own.
Their description of the rudimentary nervous systems make the robots sound like they're related to Braitenberg Vehicles, which are otherwise pretty fascinating.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From TFA
In real life, random mutations build up over many generations, leading to adaptations that help organisms better survive in their environment. In the simulation, the researchers replicated this process by randomly varying the strengths of the various connections that made up the robots' nervous systems.
~AC
If you are interested in this subject, you might find this documentary interesting.
From wikipedia:
Nice Guys Finish First (BBC Horizon television series) is a 1986 documentary by Richard Dawkins which discusses selfishness and cooperation, arguing that evolution often favors co-operative behaviour, and focusing especially on the tit for tat strategy of the prisoner's dilemma game. The film is approximately 45 minutes long and was produced by Jeremy Taylor.
Your chosen handle says volumes about your statement. Your rhetoric about enjoying another's suffering is unwelcome.
Good-bye
She would probably have wanted to sleep with you after that. Duh. j/k
Anyway, regarding simulations like these, if you have agents that reproduce, and whose governing algorithms can change, and which are limited in which ones can reproduce, then you will see shift toward reproduction-favoring agents through "natural" selection. (Artificial in that it's a simulation, natural in that you do not have to separately program it.)
Depending on how the environment is set up, agents that "help" others (for certain definitions of help) may find themselves selected for -- perhaps because other agents stumble onto an algorithm "help those who helped you", or perhaps for some more complex or less complex reason.
And when they do, you see these kinds of results, where altruism "evolves" -- you still have to be careful about extrapolating this to human history: did the same altruism-favoring mechanisms appear in human history? Was it a fluke, where a re-run would see altruist weeded out? Where there particulars that made altruism unusually helpful to reproduction?
But of course, that doesn't fit simplistic narratives like "Robots decided to be altruistic, so that's obviously the logical thing to do, like my pastor/ethical theorist was telling me all along!"
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I watched an Open University TV show that showed this using a computer simulation, oh about 30 years ago, but rather than describe it as altruism, they approached it from the other direction and showed that being an asshole in a group made you suffer relative to the rest.
So the gamble is this: I can take the immediate reward and spend it on groceries, or I can give the $ back to the lady on the off chance that I might drop some money in the future and the even more remote chance that some complete stranger will give it back? Sounds like I made a really bad choice, evolutionarily speaking.
Monkey see, monkey do. You've just reinforced that behavior in the eyes of anyone that saw you do it. People around you now are more likely to exhibit the same behavior.
Bit at a time, man.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
You're helping to create a friendly and safe environment/culture.
When people don't have to spend too much of their resources being paranoid and watching their backs they can generally get more productive stuff done.
That's why stuff like culture and religion are important.
The atheists might claim religion is net negative, but so far it looks like not all religions are the same, and the major religions are still competing very well against atheism (which does not seem to have a good reproduction/conversion[1] plan compared to the popular religions).
[1] If a particular culture is very good in theory, but is not good at spreading in practice, in the long run it's more likely to go extinct.
"I can steal her money and spend it on groceries..."
FTFY
Robots don't "evolve". They are clearly programmed (designed) that way.
You're right. Straight from the article: "Once the team was comfortable with the virtual evolution environment it had set up, it added a new twist: It allowed the robots to share food disks with each other." If they truly evolved the ability, it would have happened without the team allowing it to happen.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Yes, it is. I don't think you know what Placebo means.
You have been completely hoodwinked by people who want your money, don't know what the term 'energy' means, and don't understand confirmation bias. AS well as a host of other issue.
Listen to this:
http://www.pusware.com/quackcast/quackcast10.mp3
Read this:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6839
in fact, you should probably read everything here:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?cat=4
If you know how to read studies, seriously most eople don't, then do research here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
If you don't understand what makes a proper study, who to use the, how to properly understand p value and apply the results then freaking learn. As a bonus learn to apply the finding in a Bayesian way.
Oh, and be sure to read this. In fact, I HIGHLY recommend you read this first:
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx
There is no effect above a placebo effect for any Chiropractic 'treatment'.
Part of the placebo effect is the person doing the test, or treatment. So Yes, chiropractors would claim there was an effect because they are inferring an effect where there is none.
"What placebo effect? I've read this many times and have never seen documented evidence for it in relation to Chiropractic! "
Clearly you haven't looked. There are volumes of good* data showing it has no effect above Placebo.
The site I list usually, if not always, have citation you can follow up on, as well as asked questions.
*Good as in well done. Double blinded, proper controls, and so on. Which is all In care about in a study.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Right, but it's hard wired into us for the reasons I mentioned.
Or is supposed to be hard wired into us.
In the case of the robots, and evolution, altruistic means lowering your chances to procreate in favor of the survivability of the species.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, on the level we are talking about, humanity has it in abundance.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think your snark is a bit misplaced. Libertarianism depends on altruism to work. The ability of individuals to apply their money towards the causes they feel are most appropriate is a cornerstone of effective freedom. In theory, there is nothing about altruism that is incompatible with Libertarianism.
In reality, the ones who acquire the most wealth are inclined not to give "altruistically" due to the cutthroat nature and feelings of entitlement required to rise to the top, and are more inclined to spend their money for political gain. However, this is not necessarily a common trait of Libertarians, just a flaw in modeling reality.
Robots don't "evolve". They are clearly programmed (designed) that way. The fact that the designers aren't clever enough to realize the final outcome of their complex programming doesn't change the fact that they were programmed that way.
Unless the new traits came from copying errors or they have a program generator hooked up to /dev/random, this is not "evolution", by any reasonably scientific definition of the term.
There is a whole field of study regarding genetic algorithms. The outcome is certainly not "programmed" by the designer.
And evolution is not random, either. The entire point is that selection processes create a filter, and thus a non-random result.
All that is necessary for the triumph of good is that evil men do nothing.
You, sir, are awesome for bringing this to my attention. Bravo. Half an Internet for you.
Yes there is. You see... society functions dependent on mutual altruism, and we reserve the right, collectively, to punish those who don't act sufficiently altruistically for own needs. Evolutionary models support this as not just more efficient than greed based societies, but natural too.
Lets wait for them to evolve atheism. That will be fun.
Robot does what it was programmed to do. Film at 11.
In other news:
Mac fanboys still arrogant hippies.
Windows fanboys still wearing pocket protectors.
Linux fanboys still have 6 digit Slashdot accounts.
He didn't argue that "charity/altruism == slavery", nor do you believe that he did. You set up that strawman because you knew you were not competent to refute what he actually did say. This makes you a liar.
These virtual machine robots are computer programs. So, are they, the robots, actually developing altruistic behavior or are the original program(s) somehow biased to include that behavior? I would posit that what is being "seen" is not some simple evolutionary trait, but an artifact of bias installed in the original programming.
If you program a device to seek out the possibilities that garner the greatest success, regardless of how that success is defined, won't the device act based on it's programming? Now, if somehow these virtual machine robots are changing their programming as they go, that would be impressive. Of course, being computer simulations, even that feat would be based on the biases imposed in their original programming.
Even in nature, the simplest organisms, like bacteria, amoebas, etc. don't exhibit this altruistic behavior. Even more complex organisms don't exhibit this behavior and they have been around a lot longer than a few hundred generations of the study.
The result of the study seems to indicate that altruistic behavior develops when an organism (such as the virtual machine robot) is programmed that way by it's programmer. Of course, then that begs the question for those organisms in real life that exhibit the altruistic behavior, who programmed them?
I wish I had mod points.
Yeah, Randroids haven't grasped the tragedy of the commons situation (in that situation selfishness without trust brings the tragedy).
The sensation of pain is very sensitive to placebo effects, much more so than other physical properties of the body. It makes sense because the placebo effect is controlled by the brain, just like the sensation of pain.
Some reason she took those social security checks and let Medicare pay her doctors bills.
Being a programmer at small start-up afforded me to be laid off quite frequently. Each tim this happened, I forwarded any suitable position to which I was applying to to my other laid off friends. My logic was simply this: If I don't get it, my friend will get it, and he or she will rally for my cause once inside, or in the worst case, there is one less equally capable competitor in the market.
So, your last strategy is to create a shortage of unemployed programmers, and fill that niche?
What's wrong with you!? You should be cannibalizing members of your own species for pure profit and mania, not realizing the intrinsic value of supporting each other. Obey your capitalistic parents!
Oh, I love to play with definitions; let me give this a try!
Technically, the definition specifies "unselfish" behavior. Being that selfish behavior is categorized as caring solely for one's self regardless of others, I would say that true altruism need not be entirely unreasoned or disinterested in one's own benefit. So long as that caring for one's self is done with regards to other people, I think it matches the technical definition of altruistic behavior just fine.
Demented But Determined.
Altruism, by definition, must be 100% voluntary.
No such thing exists. There is always some social pressure or societal gain for altruism. Nothing is 100% voluntary.
So let's be clear: government is NOT voluntary.
Sure it is, you are free to move to Somalia whenever you like.
Whether you support the forced redistribution of wealth
Please name a functioning society that does not have this on some level. Support makes it sound emotional, this is about practicality.
The sensation of pain is very sensitive to placebo effects, much more so than other physical properties of the body. It makes sense because the placebo effect is controlled by the brain, just like the sensation of pain.
Except that when I get an adjustment, most of the time knots I have in my muscles disappear. That's not a placebo effect. I'm not just imagining it.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Money. She didn't *give* her books away...
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Tipping means you're a trustworthy businessman? WTF where did that one come from? The biggest asshole businessman I ever knew (ended up in prison) was a big tipper. It turned out he was frivolous with money and spent like there was no tomorrow. I got screwed for almost $10k in salary and unreimbursed expenses on that one.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Hmmm...so you have a lot of explanatory power with that statement. You can explain pure altrusim (my tribe will all start acting nice because they saw me do it for some reason, creating a bright shiny utopia), and you can also describe selfish behavior (I saw that guy mug someone and get away with it, that's why there's so much selfish behavior in the world). So which is it?
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
We are Devo.
There's probably a point in there somewhere.
for many creative individuals and IT employees, there can be lulls in their job,
My code's compiling.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Of course, just because something results from natural selection doesn't mean it is "good." Objectivists object to collectivism just as collectivists object to "social darwinism" - because they think it makes people unhappy, not because it wouldn't arise from evolution.
The illusionary boundaries will vanish once we rise up from the nationalistic psychosis. There will be many wars before that happens, so it's not going to be pretty. The resources are getting scarce.
I never said it means that you are trustworthy. I just said that it might help in being perceived trustworthy. You're actually driving home my point - he probably tipped so much because it helps maintain the illusion of trustworthiness, even though he might not have been in reality. But the illusion is all that counts... Until you get busted, of course.
He didn't make fun of all Libertarians, just followers of Ayn Rand, who said:
Soviet Russia is the ultimate result, the final product, the full, consistent embodiment of the altruist morality in practice; it represents the only way that that morality can ever be practiced.
And other fun quotes about the subject.
Dilbert RSS feed
You've got it backwards. You picked it up and gave it to her because it has helped survival in the past. The behavior has evolved already. There are instances where it does not benefit the group, sure -- but even in your case, it benefitted you by not making you a rebellious member of the group. If people saw you steal that woman's money, how likely do you think they would be to invite you into their social units?
While I have no issue with people posting links to whatever they feel like, I think people should post the link directly to what they want. In a medium where character limit is not an issue and HTML tags can be used to clean up links, there are only two reasons to use URL shorteners. Either the user is an ignorant twitter or SMS user otherwise thinking such things are necessary, or they are maliciously trying to hide the destination of the link. In either scenario, I don't see a problem with rejecting a post through the submission system, with a comment to the user to use the direct link.
Placebo effects are not just imaginations. Maybe you were just unconsciously tensing up the muscle, and the therapy made you relax it.
Actually, that -IS- the placebo effect. The neuromuscular release can be tied to the belief in the adjustment.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Altruism, by definition, must be 100% voluntary.
No such thing exists. There is always some social pressure or societal gain for altruism. Nothing is 100% voluntary.
What about an anonymous donation never taken credit for or mentioned to anyone else?
Altruism describes decisions to help others for the sake of helping that person. It's irreducible in concept.
The robots are helping each other due to developed "instinct" to preserve accumulated improvements through further generations, not for genuine care for the well-being other robot in and of itself. This is not altruism.
Altruism has a functional definition when referring to evolution, since it's more philosophy if you want to think about animals or bacteria acting morally. I can't recall the precise definition off the top of my head, but it's something along the lines of helping another at personal cost. As I recall, there are three major theories as to why organisms do this.
First is Kin Selection, which is what the article seems fixated upon. Bees and naked mole rats are the classic example. Essentially, it means you'd take a 10% risk of removing yourself from the gene pool to save an individual who shares 15% of your genetic material.
The second is reciprocity. Vampire bats may give a starving individual a blood meal to save their life, and it's a lot more likely if the starving individual offered a blood meal in the past.
The third, and most difficult for people who don't understand math to wrap their head around, is trait group selection. Natural selection has a mathematical model. This is a corollary of that model. In nature, animals form large numbers of groups, either transiently or permanently. Within a group, a non-altruist will always out-compete the altruists and reproduce at a higher relative rate. However, groups with more altruists will reproduce at a greater rate relative to groups with more non-altruists. Overall, you often can have altruists increasing in absolute number despite falling in relative concentration within each group. This process is iterated over generations or within multiple (perhaps infinitesimal) groups that the individual forms within it's life. Being a purely mathematical phenomenal, I would suspect this would emerge within any appropriately complex computer model (it did for the one I wrote for my final project in my Evolution elective back in college).
OTOH, the entire concept of altruism seems offensive to some people. I'm not trying to say any of these are "true altruism", since they happen all the way down to bacteria secreting proteins that deactivate antibiotics, subsequently protecting nearby unrelated bacteria. It's an explanation for observable animal behavior that humans also demonstrate. Plus, "true altruism" isn't a falsifiable hypothesis, so there's little sense in arguing about the moral proclivities of humans, bacteria, chemicals, cultures, or ideas.
Not to take a cheap shot... well, maybe precisely to take a cheap shot.
There's a difference between Randroids, Objectivists, and objectivists (small 'o'). Randroids and Objectivists follow a doctrine -- hence, they do not evolve. Perhaps it is not the altruism or resource sharing he was questioning, but the ability for a being to have a different thought than his ancestors.
I am an objectivist, but I find Objectivists to miss the greatest feature of Ayn Rand's work -- that it leads you to think outside the traditional box. If you go down that path just to wind up in Ayn Rand's box, you have gained a little but missed far more.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
So, I guess robots, unlike humans, don't cockblock each other (purposefully or not) at the bar when they're trying to land a hot chick.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They allowed the robots to share food, but they did not tell the robots to share food. If you define your simulation such that as soon as a robot acquires food, it is consumed, sharing is simply not possible. The researchers changed the simulation to make sharing possible, but it was still up to the robots to "discover" that they could now share food. If sharing wasn't evolutionary advantageous, they would have kept on being selfish, despite the change in the simulation.
Yeah. Survival of the fittest is about the fittest species, not the fittest individual.
Any species that makes selfless sacrifices for others in the species will out-compete the species in which members only look out for no. 1.
Being a social animal (caring what others think of you) and being altruistic is a huge competitive advantage in terms of survival...of your species as a whole, not necessarily you personally. This could explain why people generally feel satisfaction and self-esteem when they help other people, and ashamed when they exploit others. People without these traits are considered deviant, and often end up in prison.
The ideals we hold as truly noble, it turns out, help the species (if at the expense of the individual).
www.cgstock.com
Actually, that -IS- the placebo effect. The neuromuscular release can be tied to the belief in the adjustment.
There have been other times when chiropractic treatment has not worked for me as sited above. Also, I've had things like pain in my back when I breathe in, due to subluxated ribs, and the pain went away after they popped my ribs back into place. It was something I both felt and heard. Having the ribs put back was unpleasant to say the least, but there was no more discomfort with breathing after it was done. You can continue being skeptical, I just know that in most instances chiropractic care has worked well for me and many other people I know.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
The more equal the women are to the men the less children they will have. The more options available the more they are used by the women to control the fertility rate. It's tragic how much religion dictates the policies about the issue. The inevitable result of family planning projects and education is a falling fertility rate. It's actually pretty hard to find a country where the rate is going up.
Rationally sharing the resources doesn't mean that the fertility rate will be sustained or go up. The reason why the rates are up is because of the lack of knowledge.
Hear hear...well, spoken Bruce!!
I like to help my fellow man...I often help my friends and family whenever I can.
I don't mind being asked to help as long as 'no' is a reasonable choice of answers. I don't say no very often, but there are times when I can't afford the time or money to help.
Do I give till it hurts? No.
There is a level of who I care about...close family first...close long term friends...friends...drinking buddies...etc.
Each come with their own level to which I'll inconvenience myself or even risk my own lifestyle to help.
For the general public...I'll help just to the point to where it is detrimental to me or those close to me. In the end, in general, life is a contest and competition. I don't hold anything against my fellow man...until I start to lose, then, I fight to get what I want. There are always winners and losers in life. I strive to at all times be a winner.
Life is short...too short to not live and enjoy it to the best of your capability. And if someone is in your way or competing to take something you need/want...well, it is a contest between you and them.
Altruism is nice...until your life starts to suffer, and I don't really know anyone out there, in the end...that is more important in my life to me.
You only get one shot at life....why not make it count!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Sorry, wrong link: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html
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If that's what she really said, I find it somewhat agreeable. Being "guilted into helping people" -- yes, I hate that. I think that I do quite a bit to help people out. I'd probably stop helping others real quick if someone tried to make me feel guilty about *not* doing it, though. It's hard to explain why I'd stop, but somehow I find the act of "guilting someone into something" to be repugnant. Takes all the pleasure out and ruins the day.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Apparently, carrying over genes is the only reason.
We're on the subject of altruism.
If you have "A" a culture that does 85% good, but does not reproduce itself, and "B" a culture that does 60% good and does reproduce itself. In the long run "B" will do more good than "A", since "A" would die out.
As for your other points: ;).
1) there are very few rational beings.
2) From what I see most people want to belong to a group (which tends to be divisive) - whether that group is a football team, Greenpeace, Vegans, Apple, Linux, Democrats, Republicans. They're going to get religion whether the atheists like it or not. So it's more important that they get the less bad ones. If you don't think those adherents are religious maybe you should try to challenge their beliefs
3) practically everyone will have compartmentalization of beliefs. Just observe people.
4) Since we're on the subject of altruism, whether the supernatural nonsense is true is not actually that relevant. A rational atheist would objectively measure the actual good vs evil a particular belief system does over time, and rate them accordingly. Rather than go by faith and hearsay.
To the people who ask "what's good and what's evil?" maybe a good start would be the long term thriving (not just mere survival) of the species.
I've always thought it obvious as an Objectivist that sharing and compassion are highly evolved, successful traits. Not to be confused with political collectivism like communism or corporatism. This is more like, taking turns in traffic and letting exactly one person merge from each direction in turns. Rand doesn't really go into those distinctions herself. But she does say to look at the evidence and go by that, not to take somebody's word for something. (including hers) She didn't think the "social darwinists" that latch their wagon to hers were worthy of more than an out-of-hand dismissal because they're so stupid. (In Philosophy: Who Needs It she addresses that point.)
Investments without guarantees is ... risk analysis. The understanding that if you do x, y is more likely is a risk, with not guarantees. If the reward is greater than the cumulative risk, then in the long run, that is exactly what will play out, if not, then it won't.
Of course humans often don't care about such risk/reward analysis and will override sane behavior and engage in high risk, low reward (lotto/slot machines) on the OFF chance that one CAN get beat the system for a very large reward. I play the slots, but I'm under no delusion that I'll more likely than not, walk away with less money, but the cost is rewarded in entertainment value, like going to see a movie. Twenty bucks on penny slots for a couple hours ... better than watching Justin Bieber's new movie.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Hmmm...so you have a lot of explanatory power with that statement. You can explain pure altrusim (my tribe will all start acting nice because they saw me do it for some reason, creating a bright shiny utopia), and you can also describe selfish behavior (I saw that guy mug someone and get away with it, that's why there's so much selfish behavior in the world). So which is it?
One word answer: Yes.
Three-word answer: Ask Schrodinger's cat....
....or better yet, take a look at this talk from TED and consider what Philip Zimbardo has to say on the subject.
http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
I've never seen those.
No, no. Randroids are willing to offer lots of helpful advice. Stuff like "Get a f*cking job ya bum".
Randian thought and Objectivism works on the basic question of, "Is this good for me?" At it's core is selfishness, and quite a few people—from christians to secular humanists—find this selfishness repugnant.
Before you claim I don't know what I'm talking about, I used to be a Randian drone. It's a sick, inhuman mindset that places self on a pedestal above all others.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
But in humans, carrying over genes is not the only reason. There is also the matter of respect, and trustworthiness. In order to convince your allies that you are trustworthy and 'good', you would exhibit selfless acts, with no expectation of return from the person concerned, but definite returns from those you know.
You can take the argument even further. Even when no one else will ever credit you for your actions, there is still your own self-image to consider, as well as simple empathy. If you prefer to see yourself as unselfish and interested in the welfare of others, or even if you simply empathize with them and prefer to assuage the source of that pain, your "altruistic" actions ultimately carry a personal motive.
According to the strict definition, I don't think any theory of evolution could ever explain true altruism, because for altruism in it's pure definition, there simply is no reason. If it has a personal reason, then it is, by definition, not altruism.
Regarding the biological basis for instinctive altruism and empathy, it is worth remembering that evolutionary processes rarely result in a perfectly targeted response. Compromise solutions with myriad chaotically-interacting side-effects are the norm. The main evolutionary benefit may derive from helping out your close genetic relatives, but that does not prevent the bias from "bleeding over" toward others who are less closely related. With the recent increase in urbanization, it is also possible that the benefactors of such altruistic actions were historically more likely to be closely related than they are today.
Fortunately, there is no need to explain "true" altruism, as a deliberate choice rather than instinctive behavior—it simply doesn't exist. Instincts are either random, directly beneficial, or a misapplication of behavior which would be beneficial in other contexts, and thus never constitute deliberate acts of altruism. Every deliberate action is taken for one or more reasons, and those reasons are always related to one's own preferences—which are axiomatic, and need not be explained—which makes them personal. However, the more common use of "altruism" which considers only the absence of expected material gain is perfectly compatible with philosophical models which reject any widespread influence of "true" altruism in human behavior.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
As pointed out elsewhere, humans have only recently moved from a tribal, very-small-scale society to a larger-scale anonymous one. In terms of biology, we haven't had anywhere near enough time to make this change (maybe 100 generations at best).
Altruism to others inside your tribe is a very good thing, as it reaps significant rewards. You are very likely to gain status, which means more/better food and mating chances, and even if the person helped wasn't directly related to you, the odds that they were at least a 3rd or 4th cousin were darned good. Remember that in a village of 200 people, virtually everyone shares at least one great-great grandparent.
This generalizes to societies of any size: in a society which promoted altruism, by helping someone in your society, you greatly increase the odds that you yourself will be helped altruistically. E.g. If my society promotes the idea that a bystander should apply first aid to a stabbing victim, rather than wait for the EMTs, then the likelihood that you will survive a stabbing is significantly better than a society which discourages bystander altruism. This alone should insure the survival of altruism as at least a significant minority trait.
In addition, in modern society, we compete on memetic as well as genetic survival. So, helping those in your local "friend" circles promoted memetic survival.
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Sorry life does not work that way. Do you want the folks in your office to think you are a cheapskate? No, then you buy the lung cancer sticker for $20. Do you want the cashier to give you a dirty look for not donating to the foodbank? No, then you give them a buck.
These are just a couple examples for better studied ones note that men on dates are more generous with requests for charity than they would be otherwise.
By the way, what was his argument? That paying taxes and having that tax money go to charity (e.g. welfare) is "slavery"? (Talk about melodramatic - as if some guy earning six-figures is now compared to African-American slaves because he has to pay a few thousand dollars more in taxes.) Very little of anyone's tax dollars actually goes to welfare. Or maybe he meant things like Medicare and Medicade, which are a significant part of people's taxes. Of course, relying on people to give money (out of charity rather than via taxes) leads to a problem: people never donate anywhere close enough to actually cover the costs, which leads to destitution. Seriously, if you add up all the money Americans give to charity each year (around $300 billion) and compare it to the amount of money spent funding Medicare and medicaid (in the trillions), you'll find that all the charitable contributions a fraction of the money spent on Medicare and medicaid. So, perhaps we could say that "forcing people to pay for this stuff via taxes" is really a symptom of a different problem: "people's unwillingness to contribute enough of their own free will". Besides, people voted (directly or indirectly) for taxes to go to those programs. It's not like this was some decree by the king. So, the randians are left arguing that the will of the majority (who are also taxpayers) are stifling their freedom to not pay.
You know, the whole thing about what Randroids say about altruism and self-interest Randroids, is the result of them defining altrusim and self-interest differently.
They'd use the term 'altruism' to describe hurting a loved one because someone you don't know or care about wants them hurt. They call it 'self-interest' when an empathetic person gives money to a total stranger in need.
Assume my income is high enough that I'm not only paying for the services I receive but that I'm also paying extra. Please explain to me how I'm not being forced to be charitable - and while you're at it, explain to me what ultimately happens if I refuse to 'donate' this extra amount. You've got the most creative use of the word 'disincentivized' of anyone I've ever seen. :)
Semantics aside, this report is actually pretty cool.
Mutual Aid and cooperation is not exactly unseen in evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution
Claiming credit is not a predicate for receiving a reward. The reward in such a case may simply be feeling good about yourself. Don't confuse that with altruism.
I was going to call you an idiot, but perhaps you're just ignorant. If you repeat this mistake, that'll make you an idiot, or willfully ignorant, which is worse. Oh hey, check out your sig. Scratch that, you're an idiot.
Evolution is the process, it says nothing about the origin of the units in question.
For example, since this is the obvious place this argument goes, a Christian can believe that God magically genesised life which then evolved into the diversity we see on Earth. The process of a genetic pool changing itself and keeping the fit ones is the definition of evolution. If someone sets up a system to evolve, like in an artificial life simulator, the process in which it designs itself is evolution.
Your quip about "aren't clever enough " what all will happen is foolishness at best. Unless you consider a pair of dice to be the equivalent to a Shakespeare play. Because you can replicate the entire works of Shakespeare using some dice. It takes a while, but it'll happen. See Chaos Theory.
I admit I was just trolling. I could cite instances of US obstinance such as pulling out of the Kyoto Accords, but I concede that those would be overwhelmed by the various examples of cooperation, even if one attempted to weight them. The US is quite generous and cooperative, and although among its peers in the first world it is quite stingy, this is nowhere near the level of isolation and obstinant selfishness as a country like North Korea.
It may be placebo or it may be real but either way the pain is gone, for a while atleast, and at the end of the day that's what most people want.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Ehhhh, I dunno man. There's a question about what it means to believe in some of the material, but not wish to be associated with the movement overall. I mean, I could say that I'm a Newtonist, a capitalist, a socialist, and a world-is-round-ist, but I understand that all of those ideas fall apart on some levels. The cultural movement behind those ideas is what makes those ideas an -ism. And it's those like-minded people that are -ists.
So sure, you believe that it's a good idea to look at things objectively. Not to be tied down to irrational tradition or feelings. To analyze what the true purpose of your actions are. Good things. But these fuckers who made a cult to Ayn Rand are nutcases. I really don't think you can call yourself a "small o objectivist" any more then I can call myself a "small w world-is-roundist".
I guess this is what makes someone a moderate. A half-dose of rationality and a tempering of passion. Is a moderate version of a Extreamo-Fasist still in the same category?
Free will seems to be illusory in the first place, so what does the word voluntary even mean in that context? If it aligns best with your interests, is it voluntary?
aches and pains, sure. There are some practices by chiropractors which can at least temporarily relieve the problems which cause pain. The problem I have with them is that they are temporary; once you start visiting, you go back over and over for pain relief. They don't treat the underlying problem.
Disease? What disease has been cured by chiropractic treatment? Swelling of the wallet?
Deafness? Seriously?
And the colic thing has been so soundly refuted I'm just going to point and laugh.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Evolutionarily speaking, you haven't made a choice in this instance that is relevant at all. But unless you are afflicted by psychopathy, you will typically experience a rewarding sensation when you give the money back to the lady. This reaction in your brain may not help you spread your genes in this instance, but the same mechanism will lead you to do many things that will. Not everything that happens as a result of evolution will result in actions that "make sense" evolutionarily, as evolution leads to ad-hoc solutions instead of well designed solutions. Some people would point out that the psychopath has the biggest advantage of all- free from impulses of guilt and free to act in direct self interest at all times. I recently read Sam Harris's book The Moral Landscape, and in it he pointed out that for most of our history we lived in small communities. Within a small community, a psychopath is at an extreme disadvantage because his behavior patterns will become well known. Psychopathy would not have been selected for in these situations.
Rand makes quite clear that selfishness - not freedom or liberty, but selfishness - is the highest ideal, and altruism, the opposite of selfishness, is the greatest sin. She attacked voluntary altruism the same as the forced kind. Maybe it's a point that is emphasized more in The Fountainhead than Atlas Shrugged, I don't know, it's been a while since I read either. But I think you're conflating objectivism with libertarianism, which is only concerned with the elimination of force.
Around 1987 I simulated cannibalistic robot by accident on a Symbolics 3600 in ZetaLisp+Flavors. It was perhaps one of the first simulations of self-replicating robots in a 2D sea of spare parts. The parts were something like a computer, a welder, a gripper, a battery, a radar, and another rock-like item. The first robot was programmed to collect parts to attach to itself to duplicate itself as two similar halves as a sort of repair process back towards and ideal, and then cut itself in two, and then each separate piece was supposed to go off and do the same. But I did not think it through all the way, and the first thing the original robot did as the copy started up was to start to cut the copy in two to reuse the parts because they were the closest available that were not in itself. So, the robot was both cannibalistic and killing its own offspring.
It goes to show how easy it is to make a mistake designing artificial life. I had to add a sense of "smell" to prevent that from happening, where the robots would set a smell on each item they used and would leave similar smelling items (in offspring) alone.
I gave a talk about the simulation around 1988 at a workshop on AI and Simulation at CHI+GI in Minnesota, and talked about how easy it was to make robots that were destructive and how much harder it would be to make them cooperative. Afterwards someone from the Army working with DARPA literally patted me on the back and told me to keep up the good work. And that was one reason I stopped working on it. :-)
And since then we have sadly seen the rise or an ironic use of military robots when robotics could otherwise bring us abundance (like President Obama authorizing a drone strike within days of taking office that allegedly lead to the deaths of three Pakistani children).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5575883.ece
But, to the army officer's credit back then, I don't know if he was more interested in the destructive or constructive aspects of what I had to say. And in truth, both construction and destruction are both related in this plane of existence. And we all need some security, the issue is how we go about getting it. An essay I wrote on that:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
I do believe robots will learn cooperation. The issue is more if humanity will be wiped out first and then later any robots (if they too survive) might be regretful, or whether we will co-evolve together somehow. As long as much of our R&D is mostly driven by short-term profit maximization and the push to privatize profits and to socialize risks and costs, I don't know...
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Altruism didn't evolve in these robots, they programmed them to be able to share, and those more likely to share with their kin were more successful. The only way the altruism would EVOLVE is if it arose spontaneously.
This is more like saying God decided it was time for fish to get out of the water, so he gave them lungs.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Don't try to whitewash it - the abandonment of altruism was a requirement of joining those in Galt's Gulch.
"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
If Dagny had been unwilling to make this pledge, she would have been forced to leave.
What wonders me however is whether the simulation is bugfree....
At no point did I knock chiropractic.
Slept through English class, did we? -10pts for awful reading comprehension.
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It isn't inferred at all, it's quite explicit and central to Rand's philosophy. Objectivism is primarily concerned with selfishness and altruism, not primarily freedom and force. Altruism is the greatest evil, and selfishness is the greatest ideal. So of course the objectivist will refuse to behave objectively when free not to. That is the point.
You are confusing objectivism with libertarianism, which is concerned only about freedom and force, but not selfishness or altruism.
More likely lazy. I see a lot of confusion that suggests objectivism is synonymous with libertarianism.
The truth is seldom welcome. Did I touch a nerve there?
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Because it helps them feel good about themselves to pretend that their sociopathy means they are morally superior to the rest of us.
Yeah. Freedom also includes the right to shove my knife in between your ribs, but much like "being an asshole on a national level" we've decided to throw that freedom away in the name of having a fairer society, and that's why you still have to pay your taxes regardless of what Ayn Rand may have said.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
most excellent
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
You've said people sacrificing themselves to help others in order to propagate shared genes can not be called 'altruistic' because it is selfish, but is this really so? If I sacrifice myself, it doesn't actually help me any (quite the opposite), even if it does help propagate my genes. Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene talks about genes being 'selfish' although people aren't necessarily (AFAIK). And BTW, while you've objected to the use of the term 'altruistic', you've proceeded to use the term 'selfless' in a more objectionable way.
I think the problem is exactly that religions have anything to say about how one deals with others. How you deal with others is something that should be based in demonstrable reality instead. Religion can often lead people to think that there's only one anointed way to do things, even when they go against our best interests. Now, assuming there is a religion that is correct about the afterlife, then following that religion's tenets is indeed in our best interests. But that remains to be shown in any convincing way.
This is a surprisingly pervasive idea, but one that's critically flawed. What you described is commonly called group selection, and aside from a few nutters hanging on, the concensus is that while group selection can happen, its strength is far less than that of selection on the individual, or more appropriately, their genes. It's now trivially easy to do the formal mathematical analysis to show that group selection must be weaker than selection on the individual, and it's something I've seen graduate students do as part of their course work. But a thought experiment can be equally convincing.
Consider you have a population of individuals who sacrifice for the greater good of the species - the spotted weevil lemming. Each so often, individuals must hurl themselves off a cliff ala the urban legend to keep their habitat from being too degraded. Their offspring may benefit, but they benefit far less than the cost to the individual, so kin selection isn't at play here. That situation is only stable so long as there is no mutation. The moment one mutant pops up who doesn't jump off the cliff, the whole thing will fall apart. That cheater will reap massive benefits, and its fitness will be greatly increased. In turn, it will have loads of mutant offspring, who carry the cheating trait. Rapidly, the strategy goes to to crap because selection favours the cheaters.
There are some folks out there who still cling to group selection (I'm looking at you, DS Wilson), but largely it's considered a non-controversy now. The consensus among evolutionary biologists and behavioural ecologists is that group selection (now re-branded `clade selection`) is weak to non-existent compared to lower levels of selection. You need but look at the massive blowback E.O. Wilson got on his recent pile of faec^H^H^H^Hpublication in Nature to see damaged group selection is as an idea.
(Score:-1, Interesting)
That, in and of itself, is interesting.
And if you think about it, that's how these terms are used in practice - especially by those people who hate Rand. Look in the bible at the story of Abraham, the "good guy" who is willing to sacrifice his favourite(!) son. He's an altruist. Look at how wealthy people get called selfish for rather giving their kids a better good education that most can afford. Hurting "loved ones" because society demands it is indeed the hallmark of altruism and its practice is the norm due to the current moral climate. Rand didn't redefine anything, she just phrased the definition according to the usage of those words - in harsh contrast to the dictionaries which are again written by altruists.
Are you kidding? The nationalistic psychosis is on a steep decline all over the world. Maybe it's less visible in the US than in Europe, but even in the US there's no draft anymore. There won't be any large wars anymore, it's over, nationalism is about to die.
My loyalties surely are towards certain groups of people defined otherwise than race and passport.
And whatever is scarce is then *unequaly* distributed among individuals rather than nations, who compete on a capitalistic global free market.
But I suppose by "waking up from nationalism" you probably meant some form of "fair" rule by a benevolent world government, right?
Dawkins indeed explains this very well in the "Selfish Gene". But it's not so much because others share our genes (gene-selection is only relevant in case of very close relatives).
More is explained with reciprocal altruism.
Also, under the selfish gene theory, it is easy to see how genes that bring an individual to identify with a tribe or similar concepts might bring an advantage.
Of course none of this has anything to do with self-sacrifice, which is what people usually mean when they praise altruism.
International Communism. The World Revolution. Thank God there was another tribe that stopped it.
are you ready for this, get a mirror handy to see if you pull the same expressions as Rand.
I give you the horror of 'Ayn Rand'
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/18/truth-about-ayn-rand/
I want to chop your head off Ayn and suck out your brains and spit them on the floor, how'd ya like that then. more suckers born every day.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
No, i jsut whole heartedly disagree that i have a DUTY to serve my fellow man. It is my choice as a sentient being. That choice does not necessarily involve taking pleasure in it. It can, but that is another matter entirely.
Good-bye
What the fuck are you smoking? The highest tax brackets in the US are at their lowest percentages in, well, since the US started taxing people.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
My personal belief is that it's simply kinda cool that the Universe is constructed in such a way, that, altruistic behavior is a survival characteristic. If that is the "intent" of the universe, then that is very nice.
expandfairuse.org
Around here, we call that rationalization. I am aware that you need a pretty strong dose of it to justify rejecting civilization.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Oh my, the bitch is even more morally repugnant than I thought. It's pretty much easy to understand what she wrote - the constant butthurt wining of a priviledged asshole over the loss of her servants in the russian revolution. You don't need to caricature Rand - that's like caricaturing an amoeba to point out that it is slimy. And don't you dare talk about "intellectual dishonesty" in the context of Rand critique. Rand never had any idea what either of those terms actually means.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Freedom includes the right to be an asshole. FORCING people to be charitable is the opposite of freedom - it's basically what plantation masters did to slaves (volunteer work picking cotton).
Being a part of a society entails voluntarily giving up some of your freedoms. The freedom to kill, for example, is necessarily sacrificed. Taxation is one of the prices you pay for being a part of the society. Being able to choose where you taxes go is not a freedom you get to exercise. We have elections for hiring the people who get to decide how much you pay and where the money goes. Neither restricting your freedom to kill nor forcing you to pay taxes is immoral or unethical.
If you can't abide with the freedoms you have given up, your easiest option is to leave and find a home where no society will impose restrictions on you. Until then, get used to forced taxation.
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A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters (read: the poor and middle class) discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
Do you seriously believe it's the poor and middle class that are voting themselves largesse from the treasury? Have you look at where our money goes and who is controlling that?
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I can't. I can see how it would be comfortable to think it's not so, but I think it is so. How interesting that you're completely the opposite.
One thing you have to remember is that evolution doesn't precision optimise your behaviour to every conceivable situation, especially in a changing environment. For instance, evolution hasn't really tuned humanity to video games, for instance. Quite the opposite: video games are tuned to humans as they are.
Could you give an example of a behaviour which you believe cannot been linked, even indirectly, to an evolutionary instinct? This is a claim I find bewilderingly broad.
One of the factors that often gets missed in these kinds of simulations is that fact that in the real world humans (and other social animals) don't know with absolute certainty how closely related other members of the species are to them, and therefore make estimates of actual and virtual kin relationships based on familiarity, appearance, demonstrations of shared customs, and in the case of humans even common ideology.
Such anonymous donations are often political, in which case they help further the ends or beliefs of the donator.
Often, they are to charities which personally mean a lot to a person. For example if a loved one died from a disease, and the donation is given to research fighting that disease, this is because it makes the donator feel better, as if they are helping the person posthumously. Revenge may be another cause. There are many non-altruistic causes one might donate anonymously.
There are all kinds of situations I can think of that have no bearing, direct or indirect, on any kind of evolutionary instinct.
How can you possibly know this?
Bleeding-heart socialism is another--thinking that because the wealthy have more property than they need to live comfortably, it's okay to keep seizing their money in ever increasing amount to fund an endlessly increasing number of entitlements for the lower classes
A) This hasn't happened - look at the historical tax rates in the US compared to now.
B) You act like "welfare" is the only thing tax revenues are ever spent on, and that rich people gain no benefit from not living in a Mad-Max anarchist hellscape. They get to keep their heads and have their property rights protected and contracts enforced, among other things.
C) If the Tocqueville quote is always true, why are so many people (including middle- and lower-income ones) concerned about the national debt?
Divorced from everyone else, more economic freedom seems like a good thing; ideally we could provide for the common good with nothing but voluntary charity for welfare, roads, etc., with no forced fees, but as a practical matter, as this point in our technological development, you're just advocating feudalism. You should also define your terms. You clearly regard progressive taxation as a violation of "fairness" and property rights, so what would you be happy with? A flat percentage from everyone? A flat *amount* from everyone? No taxes at all?
you can't ask for civility towards your thinking when your thinking makes no room for civility
you do realize that what "objectivists" propose is the antithesis of that which bonds us together as a society?
therefore, to ask for the simple social bonds of consideration and respect to continue to flow towards you... at the same time you make efforts to undermine those same social bonds... that's a failure of logic on your part
you want me to be civil to you, as you propose that people stop being civil to each other (and this is where you say there is plenty of civility in the randroid universe, thereby demonstrating you have no idea what civility is)
it's just so hilarious, if it weren't for the fact so many morons take this low iq pap seriously
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No survival of the fittest is actually survival of the fittest gene. Read Dawkin's The Selfish Gene - nothing new here that hasn't been written up in pop science for 30 years as far as I can tell
OK, but what happens when the majority of the creatures become cheaters? They die because of over population.
I know that group selection is discredited but your example illustrates something different. It's the classic hawk- dove equilibrium. Population composed only of saints gives the first bastard enormous advantage so certainly a bastard will emerge, but if all are bastard the species dies.
The big problem of human society is that the minority of bastards/ cheaters by virtue of being bastards naturally occupies positions of power.
So they make the rules of society and naturally create system which rewards disproportionally high the cheater behavior. Thus more and more people become tempted to cheat. But if it gets too much it will bring the death of us all.....
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Spotted weevil lemmings don't have judges or warriors, diplomats or artists, prophets or scholars, poets or athletes.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And that's why I stopped voting and consider mind-hacking lobby and media people a far more effective strategy.
Ignoring for the moment the fact that you do not have to chose between one and the other (voting still makes sense given how low-cost it is compared to the alternative), this is something that more people need to realize. We the people need protections against lobby and media people. Hacking them - in the general sense - is an important tool and needs to be done more often.
Within a group, a non-altruist will always out-compete the altruists and reproduce at a higher relative rate.
Until the altruists develop the mental capability to recognize the non-altruists, and exclude them from their group. Then the non-altruists lose - or rather, it becomes a fight of increasingly subtle non-altruistic behaviours to get an edge over pure altruists.
Yes, the set of all anonymous donations probably include some that are done for some political reason, but the argument I'm disagreeing with is that none exist in that set that are simply done to help others with no personal reward/gain. If we're going to decide "feeling good because you helped someone" is a reward even if it's completely anonymous then there is no such thing as altruism as you've made up an excuse that is impossible to either prove or refute.
People without these traits are considered deviant, and often end up as a CEO of a large corporation.
Shameless "fixed that for you".
If all are bastards, it generally doesn't lead to the species dying - instead it merely leads to the species being non-social. And being non-social isn't a terrible thing evolutionarily, since the overwhelming majority of species across time have probably been a-social. The selection never really becomes against the species or clade, but instead against the underlying trait.
As for your political extension, I've little comment beyond the fact that natural selection applies to ideas as well as other traits, such as genetics.
Well, my first response would be to say `who says badgers don't have morality?` We know dogs have something approximating a sense of fairness. There's a lot of middle ground between extreme anthropomorphizing and assuming all other animals are thoughtless, emotionless meat machines.
And it's worth noting that natural selection can work on ideas just as well as other replicators. Look up the literature on `Memes` if you'd like to know more.
The parent talked about resources not being shared between nations and I responded to that. I agree with you that the selfishness is the ultimate illusion.
Besides, I don't think it's useful to squish the definition of altruism into a corner where it can't possibly exist, and then leave a gap for things like "doing things for other people where the only benefit to oneself is a bit of satisfaction" with no word left to describe it. I'd rather let the existing word apply to stuff that actually happens, because that's a more useful way to be able to discuss the topic.
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For the same reason that global corporations help others by producing goods.
No leftist ever called them altruists either.
"So sure, you believe that it's a good idea to look at things objectively. Not to be tied down to irrational tradition or feelings. To analyze what the true purpose of your actions are. Good things. But these fuckers who made a cult to Ayn Rand are nutcases. I really don't think you can call yourself a "small o objectivist" any more then I can call myself a "small w world-is-roundist"."
Yeah -- you've definitely hit the nail on the head. What is the nature of "-ism", and is the word "objectivist" preloaded? Can small-o objectivist be applied to someone who believes that Ayn Rand's flawed interpretation is worthy for encouraging us to explore objective analysis, or does it inherently imply an acceptance of her flawed interpretation? Is objectivism a matter of the process, or of the doctrine?
"-ism" means identifying a most important thing. I think objectivity may be the most important thing (the natural outcome of anything contrary being large-scale subjugation), but does objectivism mean objectivity-ism, or does it mean Rand-ism?
A fine question, and one to which I do not know the right answer. I've been toying with referring to myself as an efficientist (or more specifically a long-term efficientist), which seems to capture most of my views, but it doesn't have a ring to it.
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By the way, what was his argument? That paying taxes and having that tax money go to charity (e.g. welfare) is "slavery"? (Talk about melodramatic - as if some guy earning six-figures is now compared to African-American slaves because he has to pay a few thousand dollars more in taxes.).
You miss the point. Everyone has a right to their property, the wealthy and the poor alike; and it is extremely dangerous when we succumb to the class warfare notion that some people have less right to their property than others. Slavery is the one extreme result of that notion. Bleeding-heart socialism is another--thinking that because the wealthy have more property than they need to live comfortably, it's okay to keep seizing their money in ever increasing amount to fund an endlessly increasing number of entitlements for the lower classes is just as dangerous; because... "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters (read: the poor and middle class) discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." --Alexis de Tocqueville Seizing other people's money to pay for your preferred charitable causes always sounds great until it turns into somebody else seizing your money to pay for charitable causes you don't support, which it inevitably will. Funny how morality always hinges on personal perspective.
It's sad that you posted AC. So many people read at 2 or higher that you'll almost never be read.
poster said exactly that people should stop being civil to each other. if you don't understand that, you don't understand "objectivism," you don't understand civility, or you don't understand both
you can't fault me for understanding the subject matter better than some morons saying really fucking stupid things about altruism and selfishness and not understanding at all what kind of basic human bonds their "philosophy" unravels
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
(Score:-1, Interesting)
That, in and of itself, is interesting.
Just means that the last mod (or mods) applied to it was -1 Overrated, after someone else had rated it +1 Interesting. The Over/Underrated mods don't replace the descriptors for mods like Troll or Insightful.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
B) You act like "welfare" is the only thing tax revenues are ever spent on, and that rich people gain no benefit from not living in a Mad-Max anarchist hellscape.
There's a false dichotomy if I've ever seen one. Lack of Social Security and Medicare does not turn the world into a Mad-Max anarchist hellscape. If anything, it gives the lower class immediate access to a bigger chunk of their money, which they might determine is more wisely spent now rather than later (doubtful that it's actually wiser, but at least the flexibility is there). Changing Welfare so that only truly disabled get taken care of by the state doesn't turn things into Mad-Max either. Now, perhaps if all Welfare was done away with, some disabled folk without skills might have to fight to survive (like Blaster), but that seems pretty unrealistic too, considering there are tons of altruistic people who will give charitably to the truly disadvantaged (even when not forced to!).
Being a part of a society entails voluntarily giving up some of your freedoms. The freedom to kill, for example, is necessarily sacrificed. Taxation is one of the prices you pay for being a part of the society.
Taxation is one of the prices you pay for being a part of this society. Society and rules/laws such as "do not kill" do not absolutely necessitate taxation.
Do you want the folks in your office to think you are a cheapskate? No, then you buy the lung cancer sticker for $20. Do you want the cashier to give you a dirty look for not donating to the foodbank? No, then you give them a buck.
Any time I'm "guilted" into giving, I am disgusted with the "guilter". No, I will not buy a lung cancer sticker. I may give to the charity anonymously later, but if I feel good about my anonymous giving, that doesn't mean that it's not voluntary, it just means that I like being anonymously altruistic. If I felt neutral or poorly about it, I obviously wouldn't do it. Feelings are internal motivators, they aren't external dictates that force us into an action.
You miss the point.
If helping others is an objectively advantageous trait, then she was simply wrong on that point; by her own philosophy. Objectivism is the foundation, the philosophy. Her defense of selfishness is, and what she means by the term is, that each person only has their own mind to think with and their own body to act with, and so the self is what we can each best look after; and that individuals using that system will be able to be more useful to each other. The attack on altruism is, in her system, just assumed to be bad because it diverts resources from the self. So even the most simplistic objective analysis has to conclude that if there is an amount of helping others that consistently returns more value than is invested, and also more value than would be received otherwise, is in fact selfish.
You can't just blunder through the arguments without using terms like "selfish" as jargon terms that are narrowly and clearly defined in her system.
Also by her system, "altruism" is defined as being help given to others that is without any return. So as more and more cooperative techniques are proven to not be bleeding-heart waste, but actually be social technologies that give a huge return to participants, "altruism" just shrinks, and "selfishness" grows. Objectivism has no problem taking in these discoveries, but the words "selfish" and "altruism" are fluid such that "selfish" will always include what is effective, and "altruistic" will always only include what is believed to be waste.
By only looking at the spending side, and discount whether program are necessary, you can reach stupid nonsensical randian conclusions like that. Special tax break don't show up in the budget, nor do tax cuts. Social security is paid for by taxes. Medicare is overbudget, but could be fixed by expanding coverage to everyone and getting rid of the rip off known as private health insurance. The rest of the budget is welfare for defense contractors. Social spending on welfare is not worth discussing until defense is cut to a reasonable level. Lets spend what the countries with the next 3 highest defense budgets spend rather than more than what the rest of the world spends.
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Taxation is one of the prices you pay for being a part of this society. Society and rules/laws such as "do not kill" do not absolutely necessitate taxation.
Feel free to move to one of those other cultures. I'll gladly buy you a one way ticket once you prove that such a culture still exists. Somehow I doubt many hunter-gatherer societies would accept you as a member.
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Careful with your choice of words. "Realise" implies some kind of intelligence, which these machines don't have. It is an evolved behaviour, not an understanding of their situation or possible courses of action.
We like to think that we are rational and make reasoned decisions, and we naturally see aspects of this in other forms of life. The exact mix of evolved, learned and rational behaviour that influences an action is very difficult to pin down, especially in animals like cats which are clearly quite intelligent but also strongly influenced by instinctive desires.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
...especially in animals like humans which are clearly quite intelligent but also strongly influenced by instinctive desires.
altruism (which randroids stand against)
civility (which you say randroids don't stand against)
someday, hopefully not the hard way, you will learn that altruism and civility are the same human impulse
any other intellectual charity i can help you with today?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
no, you didn't say randroid
i did
you fucking randoid
"objectivsts" and ayn rand cultists are nothing more than a study in 3 types of individuals:
1. 20 something philosophy majors with no real world experience with real human beings
2. genuinely selfish 40 something sociopathic assholes behind on their alimony payments
3. clueless low iq talk radio propagandized sheep
they all share a certain social defect in the realm of give and take and how human societies really work
you may respond with yet more indignation that i'm engaging in name calling and uncivil behavior and straw men. well: yes, yes i am. i am being very uncivil towards you. i am openly mocking and deriding you. and?
i'm not a nice person. i never pretended to me. i'm not your father. it's not my job to gently hold your hand and listen to your ignorance. i don't owe you anything, certainly not respect or civility. because you are in open warfare with the basic social truths of human existence that makes all of this, civilization, work
so most unfortunately for you, i may be uncivil, but i am truthful. truth is often ugly in this life. lack of civility is a sign of impatience on my part with you ayn rand morons, not a lack of understanding or logical coherence on the subject matter you so ignorantly inject yourself into with no real understanding
i am simply tired of dealing with you fucking ayn rand retards. what you believe is more akin to a fundamentalist religious sect than any grasp on human nature or reality. so i have no interest in treating you civilly, i only have the interest of avoiding or mocking you, as you might a creationist or a ufo cultist. "objectivist" is the same sort of person to me: completely beyond the realm of logical reason and completely beyond the realm of respect. because you get the basics so laughably wrong, there's nothing else to do except roll one's eyes
you are assuming "objectivism" and those who are proponents of it deserve some sort of consideration and respect. you don't. anyone who takes the ideas of ayn rand seriously is only establishing themselves as a village idiot that deserves only to be laughed at, so out of touch with human nature or so hobbled by some failure of psychology
maybe someone else will calmly take you by the hand and try to bring you back to the realm of the level-headed. i'm sorry, i'm not that person. i don't have the patience for this low iq mental vomit. i've seen how out of touch you are with the basics, how much effort it would take to show you how you are in denial or violation of the basics, how antagonistic you are towards the simple basic idea of human altruism, and it simply means you're not worth the effort
selfishness is just an ugly basic human instinct we all have. it is even useful at times. but if you try to dress that $5 crack whore up in the most haute couture fashion, and try to present her as a respectable, what do you want me to do but laugh? she's still just a gap toothed crack whore
same with the "philosophy" of objectivism. it's not a respectable philosophy. it's just simple selfishness, dressed up to be more than it supposedly is with the trappings of "philosophy." maybe someday you'll see through the charade and see the emperor isn't wearing any clothes, to see the gap toothed crack whore you've fallen in starry eyed love with for what she really is. but right now, you are a feverish true believer, a fundamentalist religious nutbag. not someone you have a coherent logical conversation with, and sorry, certainly not someone i respect or is worthy of civil treatment
i'm simply saying, you can't come at me with ignorance, and expect me to treat you as someone with a respectable ideology. no, you're just an ignorant douchebag
sorry, douchebag, i'm not your dad. i have no respect for you. i have mild derision on my best days, but mostly unbridled hate at how you fucking retards in your low iq cult hurt the country i love
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
wait... if you aren't defending rand, why are you arguing with me?
you just like arguing with me for some strange reason?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it