why, then, did evolution land on making us so damn greedy and selfish?
Evolution has always favored survivors.
But realistically, we’ve been shaped by culture and community even more than hardwiring from survival. A lot of things we think are set in stone are in fact products of social conditioning. In places with community and social consequence, people are far, far more charitable and have very different values.
It’s only been recently when we all started living in single-family homes and moving away from family and friends at 18 and chasing after individualist dreams that we started seeing this trend towards selfishness on a community level. There are always going to be some class of people who have the desire to accumulate power and wealth, but below those people have always been communities and societies, and it’s in those societies that power is often kept in check.
Evolution has always favored survivors.
But realistically, we’ve been shaped by culture and community even more than hardwiring from survival. A lot of things we think are set in stone are in fact products of social conditioning. In places with community and social consequence, people are far, far more charitable and have very different values.
It’s only been recently when we all started living in single-family homes and moving away from family and friends at 18 and chasing after individualist dreams that we started seeing this trend towards selfishness on a community level. There are always going to be some class of people who have the desire to accumulate power and wealth, but below those people have always been communities and societies, and it’s in those societies that power is often kept in check.