Thursday, May 15, 2008

I haven't made that much time for my morality project of late but here is a short post with the thoughts I've gathered thus far.

If we didn't care about ourselves then we'd die very young. Fortunately, we have very selfish genes and all they want to do (as far as we now know though there is something brewing on the horizon) is to live and to live on through their offspring.

When you think of selfish you think of the kid in kindergarten that stole all the toys at recess for himself. Now that he's grown up he's realized that that kind of attitude isn't going to get him very far in life (though unfortunately some never mature from that previous stage). If all we are is selfish genes then why do we share so nicely?

You can be more selfish when you work together with people. I can ensure my survival by working together with you and you and you etc. Evolution has ingrained groupishness into us and that group has expanded over the years. Family, clan, tribe, state, country, and hopefully in the near future global. We've come to realize that people are worth more to us alive then dead. Remember that parable about the goose and the golden eggs.

Just from a purely selfish standpoint it's better to get along with others.