A Casual Bit of Philosophy
I am a humanist. So much so that I can barely understand why one would not want to be a humanist. As someone focused on humans and their wellbeing/function I really love ecology and how its principles translate to economics and back again. The two theoretical frameworks reinforce one another beautifully.
Okay, one person helping another is seen as a good thing. It follows that if everyone helps everyone else, everyone has a good thing done for them. That's (mostly) the extent of my general philosophy on life. My goals and hopes revolve around the idea that everyone should be trying to better what they can as much as they can. Everything should be getting better all the time, and if it is not we must try to make it so.
Complacency is death.
In the natural world, species always face the dilemma of a changing environment to some significant degree. I don't mean something like seasonally, but rather evolutionarily. The only species that don't face this dilemma are the extinct ones. This is important because remaining static and unchanging in the face of a variable environment is just opening up an opportunity for something else to wipe you out. One of the most applicable principles here is the idea of competitive exclusion.
Competitive exclusion means that you don't have to attack something to beat it through competition. If a ground squirrel takes half the nuts in its range and another squirrel is competing for a similar range, then that other squirrel has to make do with half the nuts it would otherwise be able to find. If that final amount isn't enough for winter's caloric needs... that's a dead squirrel and the two didn't even have to directly interact. The comparisons to humans job hunting are readily made, gotta pay the bills to eat after all.
The same thing can occur if one species is just slightly more able to compete for the same resource as another. It can happen gradually over the course of thousands of years, such that behaviors or physical adaptations arise to make one species just good enough to starve out another species, then to the victor go the spoils (until more speciation or intraspecies competition). Competition is really just a symbiotic relationship with the potential to harm both parties involved. Even if you win, you had to devote resources to competing.
Throughout ecology there are immeasurable examples of coevolution and symbiosis. When two symbiotic organisms help each other then it's called mutualism. Scientists know that mutualistic interactions exist, it's not a hot debate (although there is some debate). Taken simply, mutualism turns competition into a non-zero sum game which in turn sure seems like a good goal to have for a humanist. It is a worthwhile goal to help others in this context and this context is largely universal.
Nash equilibrium, parasitism, the free-rider problem, race to the bottom.
All great examples of other potential outcomes, seeing as altruism can have significant costs and pitfalls. If you're interested in how organisms (including humans) interact in groups, all of these concepts are good to look up and keep in mind. Cooperative efforts are not inherently rosy affairs after all!
See you later.
Okay, one person helping another is seen as a good thing. It follows that if everyone helps everyone else, everyone has a good thing done for them. That's (mostly) the extent of my general philosophy on life. My goals and hopes revolve around the idea that everyone should be trying to better what they can as much as they can. Everything should be getting better all the time, and if it is not we must try to make it so.
Complacency is death.
In the natural world, species always face the dilemma of a changing environment to some significant degree. I don't mean something like seasonally, but rather evolutionarily. The only species that don't face this dilemma are the extinct ones. This is important because remaining static and unchanging in the face of a variable environment is just opening up an opportunity for something else to wipe you out. One of the most applicable principles here is the idea of competitive exclusion.
Competitive exclusion means that you don't have to attack something to beat it through competition. If a ground squirrel takes half the nuts in its range and another squirrel is competing for a similar range, then that other squirrel has to make do with half the nuts it would otherwise be able to find. If that final amount isn't enough for winter's caloric needs... that's a dead squirrel and the two didn't even have to directly interact. The comparisons to humans job hunting are readily made, gotta pay the bills to eat after all.
The same thing can occur if one species is just slightly more able to compete for the same resource as another. It can happen gradually over the course of thousands of years, such that behaviors or physical adaptations arise to make one species just good enough to starve out another species, then to the victor go the spoils (until more speciation or intraspecies competition). Competition is really just a symbiotic relationship with the potential to harm both parties involved. Even if you win, you had to devote resources to competing.
Throughout ecology there are immeasurable examples of coevolution and symbiosis. When two symbiotic organisms help each other then it's called mutualism. Scientists know that mutualistic interactions exist, it's not a hot debate (although there is some debate). Taken simply, mutualism turns competition into a non-zero sum game which in turn sure seems like a good goal to have for a humanist. It is a worthwhile goal to help others in this context and this context is largely universal.
Nash equilibrium, parasitism, the free-rider problem, race to the bottom.
All great examples of other potential outcomes, seeing as altruism can have significant costs and pitfalls. If you're interested in how organisms (including humans) interact in groups, all of these concepts are good to look up and keep in mind. Cooperative efforts are not inherently rosy affairs after all!
See you later.
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