This brings us to the study of the evolution of social behaviour. The classic question posed: Why would an individual "engage in a potentially deleterious interaction - such as those denoted by spite and altruism - since Darwinian theory placed individual fitness at a premium for evolutionary success. At the very least, and individual engaging in altruistic acts is spending time which could be better used courting females or gathering resources; at worst, it could incur injury (or even death) without any tangible reward in exchange."

In other words, why be good when we can be having selfish fun?

A biologist named W. D. Hamilton attempted an answer and came out with a formula on kin selection ( c < rb ) where c = cost to the doer, r = relatedness between actor and recipient, b = benefit to the recipient.

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/anthro/bioanth/ch8/chap8.htm

The formula seems to support the Dawkins' "selfish gene" concept that proposes people are many times more likely to kelp kin than strangers. My question with Hamilton's formula is what happens when r = 0 which is the good samaritan scenario. If the resultant c < 0, then why isn't everyone stumbling over themselves helping out strangers? Helping strangers being one of the by-products of closing the tech/wisdom gap.

I've yet to read the concept of reciprocal altruism and "The Prisoner's Dilemma" in social evolution theory. Perhaps that'll explain the missing link.

..except when surfing on a cellphone in between bites of my Sausage & Egg McMuffin.

Becoz mat salleh wan more cheong hei mah... got more figures to crunch, more fun, lol. Anyway, after my recent experience with feng shui wisdom in Guangzhou, I decided to take old sayings with a little salt.

Behavioral science and mathematics don't mix? Well I dunno. What if I say there's an 90% chance my mum will flip when I blast my CD above 110 decibels. Why can't I express that as a formula?

Here's another one for behavioural science... the probability of forumers who exceed X posts starting a new thread is Y% coz only newbies seem to post new threads. Oldies with 4-figure posts are mostly lurkers and snipers.

But in all seriousness, if altruism is the critical factor in closing the tech/wisdom gap and if Richard Dawkin's selfish gene theory is true, then its bad news becoz as far as kinship is concerned, we're less likely to find wise people with high tech relatives than we are finding high tech people with high tech relatives. Does anybody know if Bill Gates or Steve jobs have got wise sages in their family trees somewhere?

Hamilton's formula suggests that the kinship factor is critical if there is to be a regulating influence in the direction of tech development. Would you agree with him?

Here's a related question to the topic, since we're talking about ancient east Asian wisdom.

The age of Confucius, Lao Tze and the Buddha crossed the timeline of the invention of paper, gunpowder and the self-loading crossbow, a leading weapon at the time. At that point in history, we had a high wisdom, high tech civilization. We were like the Vulcans. Yet looked what happened.

In the last 5,000 years the most number of the people killed on the planet were killed in the stretch of land covering the middle East to the Indus valley to the Middle Kingdom (China). The belt of great wisdom and innovation.

The great irony is, the barbarians of the west - the vikings, celts, etc - who were burning witches at the stake as people were talking about enlightenment in India and China, have now become more 'civilized' than the once-wise East. In last year's survey of gross national happiness, the top 10 countries were all lands of barbarians.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/05/world-hap...st_slide_2.html

I bet the unhappiest places would be places like Burma, india, Pakistan, Iraq... where the great gurus once walked.

Again a contradiction that I can't resolve.

If there was a nuclear war, I bet it would be started somewhere in this belt of great wisdom.

Becoz they'll get fed up of you and let you have all the ice cream?

Exactly. Shall we go a bit deeper and try to ascertain why one society is more likely to apply wisdom than another?

Greed is the same everywhere. So is hatred, anger, cunningness. So what makes Asians so special that we've killed more of each other than any other people on the planet? Are we more spiteful and vengeful in nature than our gwai loh peers? And if so, why?

The alternative question to what makes us kill each other is, what makes the barbarian societies peaceful?

My suspicion is that living in heat and humid climates increases the chances of psychosis, which coincides with the long history of brutality and conflict among people living in the deserts and tropics. I'm still looking for the data I once saw that supports this hypothesis.

Whoa... astral travel, auras, levitation... sounds like one of those new age thingies. Didn't go far enough to see if there's any lizard people there but I did get far enough to read this:

"The message from Thiaoouba is that ‘‘material technology, without spiritual knowledge, is leading us to inevitable global catastrophe on Earth.""

That bit I can agree with.

Sure, I'll be happy to keep an open mind. While I read the book, could you post some of its salient points to keep the discussion going?

Labels aside, I have no argument with the main premise except I think it would be a mistake to sweep aside all material pursuit without courting the extinction of our species. Agriculture is a material pursuit, one we cannot live without. I'm nitpicking but I think good theories should be able to survive small details. Civilization is relative. We're always less civilized compared to someone else and vice versa.

Would society be any less dangerous if we didn't have these things?

I'm not sure about the beautiful kingdom part (sounds too religious for me) but no argument there about make the correct choices and we ensure our continued existence. That by the way is the message of all religions - make the correct choices and you get salvation. The only problem is that what's correct to A may not be correct to B and then they fight so I rather cut through the labels and mystic beliefs and get straight to the parts backed by provable evidence.

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Added on May 31, 2010, 9:56 amWe don't need technology to punch someone into agreeing with us but if we want to intimidate thousands all at once, its indispensable. Technology is a leverage, to enable us to do more than what our own two hands can do. Leverage also puts a distance between you and the subject and because of this disintermediation effect, acts become impersonal. You can now kill without remorse.

Same with a forum like this. Because forumers don't know each other personally, it is easier for them to troll and insult one another without remorse, something they won't dare do in a McDonald's unless they wanna go home with a black eye. So yeah, while the wall of technology can make us live longer, it can also bring out the worst in us.


This post has been edited by Beastboy: May 31 2010, 09:59 AM

Wah got so many unwritten parts liao. If I wrote a program like that, my program sure hang one.