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Comment by staunch | Hacker News Reader

A lot of what holds people back from embracing this concept is a belief in "personal responsibility" AKA free will.

Even George Orwell's quote hints at this problem:

"...we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share..."

Everyone's "fair share" is whatever they actually do. Everyone is always doing their best, given their genetics and environment. No one chooses to be "dumb" or "lazy" because no healthy person would choose that, given an actual choice. The person that does lots of hard work is able to do so only because they're able to, and not by choice either.

If we could get everyone to embrace this worldview it would resolve almost all of the progressive/conservative divide, and make it much easier for people to work together towards common goals.

But most humans are addicted to the belief that they're in control of their lives, and if they're in control, everyone else has to be as well. And so we can't have nice things.

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The problem is not about understanding the concept such as "...we must all cooperate and see to it that everyone does his fair share..." because it is not a complicated one itself. The same concept has been reflected in some Hollywood movies and cartoons. The real issue is why in reality human are not embracing it and even behaving quite opposite although such a concept is very easy to understand. There could be some reasons related to how we evolved till today and not many people really understand.

This line of reasoning also assumes that cooperation is some kind of ideal, however it's pretty clear that nature typically favors competition over cooperation.

If two alien species ever came into conflict, I'd place my bets on the species that has a rich history of competition and war rather than the one that favors peace and cooperation above all else.

Could be due to my work, but I picture it as an optimization strategy.

Mostly (60%?) keep doing the same proven things, and have some of the population undertake risky but promising endeavors. This way you keep exploiting the local maxima, but explore around it.

Not having everyone follow the same strategy can be a nice safeguard against extinction, I can see how it could be selected for. Cooperation isn't always the way to go for survival, especially when resources are scarce.

I wouldn't say "nature" favors one or the other. There's room for both, and one or the other will be better for the individual depending on the context. Individual survival has repercussions on species survival, thus can be selected for. Plus, if everyone is all-in on cooperation, anyone can come in and extract massive benefits from not playing by the rules (and vice-versa). Thus there is always a niche for both strategies: picture merchants vs local economies for instance.

Except that the species that essentially defeated nature and rose above it is defined by our ability to cooperate. Sure, competition is common in nature but that's why it can't win against a cooperative species. Cooperation is an ideal and its bizarre to me that we place competition on the pedestal that we do.

Competition gets you strong (or dead) individuals but weak societies.

Competition between nations, especially during wartime seems to spur innovation/technology. And better technology is overwhelmingly what has won wars.

I do have control over parts of my life. Not much but I do have influence. We do not need to give anything up or sacrifice anything. We need to wake up and take action in life's work living as close to natural as possible while taking advantage of technology only for the simbiotic good of life on the planet. Love, Truth, Freedom.

Concepts like guilt, innocence, responsibility, promises, forgiveness, etc are all predicated on free will.

If everyone embraced your perspective it isn't clear that we could maintain a civilization at all (I would bet no).

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