Everything we are judged on - appearance, intelligence, earning potential - is a random dice roll of DNA that none of us control. Yet people take credit (pride or shame) for these traits. Pondering this has left me more detached and unimpressed with the human society game and competition... but what else is there? What am "I", if anything, beyond the randomly assigned DNA-based traits?
The problem is that you see yourself as a completely isolated individual rather than a continuation of your ancestor's genetics. You don't have a "random dice roll of DNA", you have a very specific lineage of DNA passed to you by your parents. You are the sum of your parents, and a reflection of all of your ancestors before you. I don't see anything irrational with taking pride (or shame) in the ancestral line that r…
I think the biggest change is online dating. It has constrained the "selection function" to things that can be compressed into a picture and profile text. It may look like it is biased toward certain genes but at the same time it is also wholly incomplete in that regard. You don't even get to hear someone's voice which is purely derived from genetics!