lunes, 16 de marzo de 2009

Human Intelligence, and our Future as a Whole.

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After reading the first & second chapter of The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. I came to think about humans. And how we dont exactly follow the theories that he proposed. For instance, I dont know of many altruistic people around. This makes me think whether intellgince has a negative sideffect in regards to evolution. And about our future as a specie in a world that is supposedly ruled by these laws.

For animals, being superior is very significant because the benefits are more mating and more food. More power and more safety. I am thinking of lions in this case. The Alpha lion will have priority in mating and will leave lots of offspring. It will also get privilege in food for him and his offspring. And for being the Alpha, he is more fitted to survive in a fight. )in this case the Alpha male is represented by its strength, size and basically superiority as compared to the others=.

Here, we can see Darwinism at work. In the case of humans. It doesn't really work that well. Why? mainly because in the society we live in, not necessarily the richest (or the Alpha)will produce more offspring and will be more represented in the gene pool. Actually, poor people usually have more sons. What this means is that poor people, that have less opportunities, worse lives if we compare them to that of the rich people; will make up the majority of the population in the future. This is basically because now, life for humans is not necessarily better if you are smarter than the others. It is not better if humans are stronger than the others. It is better if you fit the standards of our society excel at them and that doesn't even affect your representation in the gene pool. Because people, that might be inferior in every aspect to others have the same or could have more opportunities to pass on their genes.

Humans, being intelligent creatures don't really think any of these things. Because we live as if we were different from any other animal, our decision have to do with our personal benefit. Or that of our families but only taking decisions that benefit our present. Not the future.

As Dawkins says, the reason why altruistic animals are selfish but help the specie is because they are protecting their offspring for example and therefore are expanding the development of the specie for the exchange of risking their lives.

The only reason why a human would be altruistic and sacrifice himself would be to protect a beloved one in the present. And this is a case that rarely happens on real life. Because we do see it happen on the movies. Their actions are not based of preserving the specie.

I believe that by beiong intelligent, humans start to think egoistically, and focus only on their wellbeing. This obviously affects a specie because it changes from being the survival of a specie. As it is with animals. To the survival of oneself. As if the rest of the humans were your competition. As if they were another specie.

Either way, being more intelligent doesn't directly make the specie any harm. It is being self centered what creates a problem. I believe that there are two alternatives as to our future as a specie. (this is obviously ignoring that we might face extinction for a war or for an event that we cannot control like a meteorite).
Either we will spiral down to chaos because of the amount of people that are incompetent. Or, we will eventually change our lifestyle into something more fit to surviving in the world. As if we were another animal. Instead of being the controllers.

I´m am nobody to say what will happen to humanity but based on what I know. I can say that we are going in a wrong direction as a whole. We are acting selfishly and thus incorrectly. Just because this is a slow process. One that we wont be able to observe in our lifetimes doesn't meant that it is not happening.

We have to use the intelligence we were given by evolution to do whats best for us. And I am not trying to expose any hippy theory or anything. I just want to let people know that our behavior is not positive for the whole. And if you think about it, if there is no whole, there is no you; and there is no me, and not anyone.

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