Ben Marcus's books The Age of Wire and String and Notable American Women were considered "experimental" fiction because of his unconventional use of...
Continue »
I have yet to read ALTRUISM EQUATION but the subject
of "goodness" has been very important to me for a long time as a result of my study of the debt-money system and its effects on our priorities. Noticing that unselfish
acts, kindness to strangers, etc., really get our
attention and make us feel good, yet greed and
selfishness seem to reward humans more financially,
with status, power, etc. --even as they wish to NOT be
greedy & selfish, I have concluded that humans can be
both selfish and unselfish, and most of us are. We are
as selfish as required for survival, and as unselfish
as we can be, --NOT for survival, but for feeling
good, feeling spiritual, feeling part of a universe of
cooperation, love and nurturing, committed to holding
and rewarding these values higher than greed.
I think we are BOTH selfish and unselfish because we
are adaptable. We work with the rules of the game we
find ourselves "playing." Unfortunately, we have
evolved a money system that is too simplistic to
support our higher nature and is stuck in the very
shallow mode of rewarding greed and agressiveness,
etc. If the game of survival is rigged to make winners
of the greediest and nastiness, the soft and nice
among us must surely die out. Why have they not?
"Survival of the fittest" does not seem to include
being good and nice in the attributes of being "fit"
for survival, yet after many many generations we still
have goodness as a major human attribute. Something is keeping our "higher" nature alive in spite of a lack
of survival value, in spite of the reward system
working against it.
Maybe this book illuminates why. I look forward to
perusing it! --Louis Urban Kohler
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(3 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
Customer Comments
NABRUL has commented on (1) product.
Altruism Equation: Seven Scientists Search for the Origins by Lee Alan Dugatkin
NABRUL, November 3, 2007
I have yet to read ALTRUISM EQUATION but the subjectof "goodness" has been very important to me for a long time as a result of my study of the debt-money system and its effects on our priorities. Noticing that unselfish
acts, kindness to strangers, etc., really get our
attention and make us feel good, yet greed and
selfishness seem to reward humans more financially,
with status, power, etc. --even as they wish to NOT be
greedy & selfish, I have concluded that humans can be
both selfish and unselfish, and most of us are. We are
as selfish as required for survival, and as unselfish
as we can be, --NOT for survival, but for feeling
good, feeling spiritual, feeling part of a universe of
cooperation, love and nurturing, committed to holding
and rewarding these values higher than greed.
I think we are BOTH selfish and unselfish because we
are adaptable. We work with the rules of the game we
find ourselves "playing." Unfortunately, we have
evolved a money system that is too simplistic to
support our higher nature and is stuck in the very
shallow mode of rewarding greed and agressiveness,
etc. If the game of survival is rigged to make winners
of the greediest and nastiness, the soft and nice
among us must surely die out. Why have they not?
"Survival of the fittest" does not seem to include
being good and nice in the attributes of being "fit"
for survival, yet after many many generations we still
have goodness as a major human attribute. Something is keeping our "higher" nature alive in spite of a lack
of survival value, in spite of the reward system
working against it.
Maybe this book illuminates why. I look forward to
perusing it! --Louis Urban Kohler
(3 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)