Re: virus: Altruism, Empathy, the Superorganism, and the Priso ner'sDillema

Martz (martz@martz.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 25 Apr 1997 23:00:29 +0100


On Fri, 25 Apr 1997, Lee Daniel Crocker <lcrocker@calweb.com> wrote:

>You weren't listening. In the example given, the fact of reality that
>one /cannot/ capture the gazelle alone was a premise, and you can't
>change that. Reality is like that in many places: there exist millions
>of ways to benefit yourself by cooperating and /incidentally/ benefiting
>others that simply /cannot/ be done alone. This is a fact, and can't
>be argued away. I cannot build my own car--I don't have that choice.
>And even if I did, it would probably be cheaper for me in terms of my
>time to just buy it, thereby incidentally benefiting its manufacturer.
>But I don't buy it with the purpose of filling Mr. Iacocca's pockets;
>I buy it with the purpose of driving to work to fill mine, and only
>mine. The fact that I aided someone else was just a consequence.

Thank you Lee. You have expressed my thoughts exactly, and more
tactfully than I would have.

-- 
Martz
martz@martz.demon.co.uk

For my public key, <mailto:m.traynor@ic.ac.uk> with 'Send public key' as subject an automated reply will follow.

No more random quotes.