Where’s the structural societal incentive to “do so much good”, and why would we need it?
That’s a great question. There are some college courses that can help you answer that. The short answer is “because in terms of the flourishing of an entire species, cooperation trumps competition, but it’s a recent evolution and doesn’t come naturally to everyone”. If we are to flourish and advance instead of strangling ourselves in the crib, we need to stop tolerating the kinds of selfish behaviors that prove detrimental to every society that permits them.
we need to stop tolerating the kinds of selfish behaviors that prove detrimental to every society that permits them.
The “why would we need it” question was intended as rhetorical.
I feel that as society grows orders of magnitude larger, these overall detrimental selfish behaviors keep resurfacing as advantages in special niches where they flourish, with the potential as you say to strangle us in the crib.
There’s also the looming spectre of mandatory birth control, if the magically predicted end of population growth doesn’t happen we’re going to have to do something to lessen our resource demands on the planet, because we’re already significantly degrading it far more than previous generations with 1/4th and less of our current population which simultaneously made much lower per-capita resource demands…
That’s a great question. There are some college courses that can help you answer that. The short answer is “because in terms of the flourishing of an entire species, cooperation trumps competition, but it’s a recent evolution and doesn’t come naturally to everyone”. If we are to flourish and advance instead of strangling ourselves in the crib, we need to stop tolerating the kinds of selfish behaviors that prove detrimental to every society that permits them.
The “why would we need it” question was intended as rhetorical.
I feel that as society grows orders of magnitude larger, these overall detrimental selfish behaviors keep resurfacing as advantages in special niches where they flourish, with the potential as you say to strangle us in the crib.
There’s also the looming spectre of mandatory birth control, if the magically predicted end of population growth doesn’t happen we’re going to have to do something to lessen our resource demands on the planet, because we’re already significantly degrading it far more than previous generations with 1/4th and less of our current population which simultaneously made much lower per-capita resource demands…