Right now I’m watching “The Beautiful Mind” - the story of John Nash, the great mathematician. It got me thinking about how fucked we all are. Stick with me on this, because it’s not obvious what I’m saying until much later.
A long time ago, there was man named Charles Darwin. You’ve probably never heard of him. He looked like Santa and was somewhat geeky. So nobody paid attention to him.
In my mind I’ve reinvented him as a bastion of modern culture, to make him a bit cooler. In my mind he is both Mace Windu and Shaft, yes, in my mind Charles Darwin is: Samuel L Jackson.
One day he published a few ideas about animals and how they reproduce. Not many people read them, even though they told the story about how God invented everything.
One of the very few people to read his stuff was named Herbert Spencer, who had something to say about Darwin’s theory. Spencer didn’t have a beard and was therefore not as intelligent as Darwin, but the Sun even shines on a dog’s arse, and soon Spencer came a’calling for Darwin. And Spencer had a bit of genius in hand. In my mind the conversation (that never actually took place) went a bit like this:-
“Alright Darwin, how’s it going?” Said Spencer. Darwin was a bit irritated as he was in the middle of cleaning his Mac 10.
“What the fuck, Spence?” Said Darwin, whilst stroking the barrel of the Mac 10, with almost paternal care.
“Yeah, your stuff on species and that? It’s fucking shit.” barked Spencer.
“Oh aye, and how’s that then?” Said Darwin, confident that Spencer was just busting his balls, and no scientific riposte to his theories was possible.
“Well, it does a nice job of explaining how those most adapted to survive proliferate, and those that aren’t do not. Because the weaker characteristics die out, due to inability to procreate, and the stronger ones survive, as they last longer, and therefore procreate more. But....” explained Spencer
“Go on” Said Darwin, who appeared to have all but forgotten his Mac 10.
“Doesn’t fucking explain altruism does it?” Continued Spencer. Darwin was worried now. He’d spent so much time explaining why the fittest get more sex, simply because they survive longer to do so, he’d forgotten to point out how such things as altruism exist. Altruism doesn’t make an animal any more likely to survive, so how could it have developed? It should have died out, but sure as eggs is eggs, altruism exists.
Darwin offered to make Spencer some tea, to buy some time to check the old text books. “Fuck” he thought “I’ve fucking missed it out, haven’t I?” Even at that early stage, he could tell his book deal was in jeopardy, he’d had the bloody advance and everything.
He left his Mac 10, only half clean on the table, where he’d started, and walked out to speak to Spencer.
“Yeah, I’m a bit fucking busy now. Come back in about 20 years” he said. Spencer agreed to do so. He didn’t want to, but it was Darwin’s house, so he had to agree. After all, we’re not bloody animals are we? We’re Human Beings.
Darwin immediately put his mind to solving the problem. As time went by, he got more and more frustrated. The scientific community wanted answers, and he had no answers to give. One day in a fit of indignation he called them “cocks!!” at the top of his voice. Which upset his wife immensely, as she hadn’t seen one since 1845. Then it hit him: cocks!!! Peacocks to be exact. They had these bloody great big feathers that didn’t help them one bit. In fact, they had become more susceptible to predators as a result, but they had continued to evolve great big bloody feathers. It was obvious now.
This is why: the big feathers gave the Pea Hens a wide-on. They went crazy for that shit. So whenever they spotted a Peacock with big feathers, they had to get it on. So they had kids that were more likely to have big feathers, who were more likely to procreate and so on. So Darwin set himself to studying the sexual selections of human females, and you know what? It turned out that women (throughout the entirety of or history) were more likely to have kids with a man, who was kind and considerate. Who’d believe that nowadays? Therefore their children were more likely to have that characteristic, and they were more likely to have children, who thought being nice was cool.
Darwin was well chuffed with this. He was so chuffed he dedicated 70 pages of his book "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex", to it. (plus a further 500 on the effect in other animals).
The day that he figured it out. He finished cleaning that Mac 10 and waited for Spencer to turn up on the 20 year deadline, which he duly did. Spencer opened the door to Darwin’s house, only to find the barrel of that Mac 10 pointing at his head. He had just enough time to see Darwin pull the trigger. “I don’t need no mother fucking literary criticism up in my crib, bitch!” he said. Then laid that Mac 10 to rest forever, out of respect for Spencer’s scientific insight.
You see, the human race has prided itself on it’s altruistic tendencies for quite some time. Altruism is the benefiting of others at your own expense. Now most people will have experienced altruism at some point in their lives, even if only briefly, and even if it only served as a painful reminder of how life could be if things were different.
Many scientists, even the great John Nash, thought they had proved the very existence of it, with laboratory controlled experiments. These experiments eventually became the symbols of Game Theory. Which is essentially a study of how people react in situations where the success of their choices depend on the choices of another person. So let me explain the point of it.
There is one game which is called “Dictator”. This is a development of a game (invented by Nash), called “Prisoner’s Dilemma”. 2 people played Dictator. They both knew the rules. The rules were always similar to this: player A had x dollars, player B had nothing. Player A could decide to keep all of the money or share it with player B. There would be no recourse for player B at all. Player A could give as much to player B as they wanted. Player B could do fuck all about it.
Now, the best choice, for player A, is to simply keep all the money. However, no matter where the game was played, in whatever country they did the experiment, player A nearly always gave money to player B. The world had it’s proof that Human Beings weren’t all that bad after all. Yay us.
Except, There was a guy named John List, also an economist. He had different ideas on the subject. He invented tests which changed the dynamic somewhat. He changed the rules so that player A and player B had, let’s say: $10. Player A could still do whatever they wanted , and player B could do nothing. In these circumstances, player A mostly took money from player B. Around 60% of player A’s took money from B and kept their money.
List went even further, and did the experiments without the subjects knowing he was doing it. He did this by asking subjects to offer x money for a baseball card, then asking for the best one they could have for that amount, from the dealers. He found that most of the dealers would rip off the subject.
List did those experiments as he became aware that the lab subjects were not being selfless. They were giving away some of the money, because they thought it made them look good. When this observing element was removed, altruism seemed to disappear.
It’s not all bad news though. In one experiment, player A kept their power of choice over player B’s money. However, instead of being given the money, they both had to work to earn it. Player A would know this.
In this study, only 28% of player As took any money from player B. This shows that if A knows that B has come by the money in a way that they deem acceptable, they are more likely to be altruistic, than not. Although 28% effectively stealing is not a good number.
So what’s my point here? My point is; science shows that if you feel that you are not being watched, you feel like your actions are justified, and you feel that there is enough distance between you and your victim (emotionally), then you will be more likely to steal from them. Especially when your victim can do nothing about it.
I’m not one of those nostalgic guys who thinks everything was better in the past, because it simply wasn’t.
People still did shitty things to each other, however, society dictated that those things were wrong, so people at least tried to hide what they did, so altruism was preserved.
Now imagine a society in which that is not the case. Imagine a society in which judging others is considered unseemly, selfish behaviour is always defended, and selfless behaviour is attacked as outmoded, or geeky. Imagine a society in which children are taught that hard work is unnecessary, and material goods are the only important things, and that those who acquired them at all costs are sexually desirable.
What does science tell us will become of us? It’s more important than what those with a political agenda will tell you.
Does the society I describe above already exist? I don’t know. But, whilst writing the above, I did feel compelled to define altruism.
