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Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

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Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#91

Post by k__ »

sago wrote: post #32

When I was working on evolutionary dynamics in the late 90s, a group of us from across the world were trying to build an evolutionary model that showed the emergence of altruistic behaviour. It was really really difficult. Even knowing exactly the kind of behaviour we wanted to show, it wasn't trivial to stack the dice enough to roll that outcome. I have since read a lot of arguments, a lot of post-hoc reasoning that…

Strange that this is so hard to prove.

When I see how much investment we take in people these days, it comes naturally to me that we have to look after each other.

People are expensive to produce and maintain and experience doesn't grow on trees.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#92

Post by k__ »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #90

In modern society, this is so obvious that it seems not worth writing about. Most successful people I know are kind and considerate while people I have known who are not so successful in life tend to not consider other people. OK, I am making a generalization, but one that is usually true.

The more problems you have, the less time you have for others?

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#93

Post by Fnoord »

gbrits wrote: post #55
negamax wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good example but in most real world cases choice will be to keep one point to themselves and give away between zero to one point to the group out of that one point. Now selfish behaviour kicks in as every individual wants to give as little as possible. But survivial of the group becomes crucial in face of an adversory. In that case everyone will contribute towards maximising group's strength. So in my understanding n…

But can it still be called altruism? Imho, helping out the group to preserve yourself disqualifies it as such; the selfish aspect is clearly there.

> But can it still be called altruism? Imho, helping out the group to preserve yourself disqualifies it as such; the selfish aspect is clearly there.

What you described there is in nature called symbiosis [1]. Like a cat or dogs lives with a human, or an ant with a fig tree.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#94

Post by tomhoward »

k__ wrote: post #92
mark_l_watson wrote: post #90

In modern society, this is so obvious that it seems not worth writing about. Most successful people I know are kind and considerate while people I have known who are not so successful in life tend to not consider other people. OK, I am making a generalization, but one that is usually true.

The more problems you have, the less time you have for others?

Or, the less you give to others, the more problems you'll have.

In my experience (and I'm speaking very much from personal experience of having suffered from - or been punished by - this phenomenon), the causality is not exclusively in either direction.

Rather, it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#95

Post by k__ »

aliceyhg wrote: post #39

Whenever conflict arises at work, I usually just take a pause and buy the other person a drink and get to know each other on a more personal level. Its fun doing this and usually it ends up with me understanding my coworker on a more human level and we come to an agreement and work better together. A few years ago I would have fought to have my way and as satisfying as it was to win (occasionally), the attitude is ve…

I'm doing Polyamory for the better part of my adult life and I learned much about conflict resolution. Because when you have multiple partners and they also have multiple partners you just end up with problems more often. If you take too long to fix these, the whole thing isn't viable anymore.

This also helped me in my career. I stopped thinking about "relationships" from a monogamous romantical point of view, but in a more generalized way.

I have feelings for every person I meet in life, some I love, some I like, some I find sexually attractive, some I find intellectual inspiring etc.

I want to be on good terms with all of those who I consider to be in my life for longer time, so I can't work with secrecy, fighting or passive aggressive behaviour.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#96

Post by Pica_soO »

It was never survival of the fittest- it is survival of the most adapted to a situation. If the situation rewards kindness- survival of the kindest- if the situation rewards being a heartless, survival of the heartless. If the situation is constantly fluctuating, survival of the system swinging between the both, by adapting to environmental clues. Can we please let go of 1930 evolution papers wording and thinking and move on?

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#97

Post by rfrey »

Pica_soO wrote: post #96

It was never survival of the fittest- it is survival of the most adapted to a situation. If the situation rewards kindness- survival of the kindest- if the situation rewards being a heartless, survival of the heartless. If the situation is constantly fluctuating, survival of the system swinging between the both, by adapting to environmental clues. Can we please let go of 1930 evolution papers wording and thinking and…

"It was never survival of the fittest- it is survival of the most adapted to a situation"

Isn't that exactly what "fittest" means? First definition from Oxford: "of a suitable quality, standard, or type to meet the required purpose."

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#98

Post by visarga »

Pica_soO wrote: post #96

It was never survival of the fittest- it is survival of the most adapted to a situation. If the situation rewards kindness- survival of the kindest- if the situation rewards being a heartless, survival of the heartless. If the situation is constantly fluctuating, survival of the system swinging between the both, by adapting to environmental clues. Can we please let go of 1930 evolution papers wording and thinking and…

It was never survival of the fittest individual - it is survival of the fittest group, family, village and nation. So it implies caring or altruism.

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#99

Post by Applejinx »

Kronopath wrote: post #33
blurbleblurble wrote: post #29

This is in line with recent game theory studies. In iterated prisoner's dilemma, the introduction of kindness wipes out always-defect strategies in the long run, and is competitive with tit-for-tat.

Can you elaborate on this? How do you implement "kindness" into the prisoner's dilemma? Got any links to the relevant studies?

One way I might do that is, occasionally throw in a 'cooperate' independent of whatever other strategy I've got.

Doing that will tend to convert tit-for-tatters and might flip other strategies into cooperating. If you grade by the total number of cooperate moves in the group, the group wins by 'kindness' flipping a variety of strategies into cooperate mode. It'll tend to expand pockets of cooperation. No immediate personal benefit, but tends to make the environment better which may seem like a benefit.

I don't think 'survival of the fittest' has to mean 'kneecap all your opponents and rent-seek', but that's the popular interpretation in Western capitalism :)

Re: Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)

#100

Post by prof_hobart »

rfrey wrote: post #97
Pica_soO wrote: post #96

It was never survival of the fittest- it is survival of the most adapted to a situation. If the situation rewards kindness- survival of the kindest- if the situation rewards being a heartless, survival of the heartless. If the situation is constantly fluctuating, survival of the system swinging between the both, by adapting to environmental clues. Can we please let go of 1930 evolution papers wording and thinking and…

"It was never survival of the fittest- it is survival of the most adapted to a situation" Isn't that exactly what "fittest" means? First definition from Oxford: "of a suitable quality, standard, or type to meet the required purpose."

It's one of the meanings, and presumably the one that was in mind when the term was coined.

But an awful lot of people seem to take it to mean the other sense - "in good health, especially because of regular physical exercise", and extrapolate that out to mean that it's always the strongest/fastest etc that survive.

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