Cooperativity and social reciprocity are the way all humans ought to be dealing with their environment. Selfishness is the terrible, short-sighted way to survive.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Reciprocity and cooperation are great when your group bands together to subjugate or destroy another group for their stuff. Any selfish defectors will be killed too as disloyal traitors.
Also I think the innate traits of reciprocity and cooperatively as facts when put forward as oughts is yet another example of something people often use as a metaethical no no. Can’t quite recall the name of that one. Ummm…
Hemidactylus @ 1
I find your comment apt, with a qualification.
These days the more enlightened tries to extend the golden rule (or Konfucius’ more realistic version ) to other groups, even impopular distinct out-group minorities and even other species.
🌻
The paleolithic way of thinking about cooperation we see in the GOP, in Russia and in religious cults got us from caves to mud-brick houses but should be considered destructive and obsolete.
I seem to remember some native American story about a creature called the Wendigo.
I think it was a fable meant to teach preservation of scarce resources during the winter.
PZ, while off topic, I saw this has a lot of spider info on that area, too:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/23/2230424/-A-Little-Bit-of-Heaven
The human race seems to be better off with cooperation and community as the high priority managing competetive behaviour as secondary and heavilly bounded. Personal acquisition is a human nature thing that needs to be managed and restricted. Narcissism and psycothapy require early detection and management.
Fishy @ 3
In a British urban gothic novel, the powerful boss of a high-tech corporation turns out to be a wendigo in disguise – a more plausible idea than Jewish space reptiles ruling the place from Buckingham Palace.
@6– Then how do you explain all those wildfires started by Jewish space lasers???
Space lasers are obviously a cooperative effort. I am certain the Knights Templar and Free Masons are also in on it. And maybe sone cephalopods.
#8 – I think it would be best for all concerned if we didn’t vilify our Cephalopod Overlords. After all, they would never…!
it looks to me that cooperation is one of humanities strongest survival characteristics. I can not see anything we do that is not influenced by it. We learn by being taught which is cooperative much more then competitive. The numbers of humans that exist and dominate the world to such a degree bringing us to a possible ecological disaster is made possible by cooperation. The lone rugged survivor or the tiny family band bent on competition with others would not lead humans to make vast megalopolises. They are impossible without cooperation even small villages require cooperation to function as does hunting and gathering. Without the strong use of cooperation amongst individuals not siblings humans wold just be another species of primate living in the forest or savanna.