Ah, now we're
getting down into it. Isn't this what evolution is all about? Survival
of the Fittest, that's what makes the world go round. Darwinian
reductionism. Isn't every member of every species constantly in competition
with all other members of its species. Isn't that how the losers get
weeded out and the magnificently glorious specimens of advanced evolution
like yourself get produced? (Although an unsettling thought occurs,
if the losers and the unfit and the stupid have been weeded out -
why are there still so many of them on the planet?? Hmmm....food
for thought?)
But you brush
your doubts aside and fling yourself wholeheartedly into every man
for himselfness. It seems like such a good idea, if brutal, and
it certainly seems to work on Wall Street. (Or does it? Then why is
Warren Buffet so rich? He seems awfully nice. Hmmm...food for thought?)
It does seem to
make sense - if there aren't enough resources, shouldn't every person's
first and only concern be with securing enough for themselves? Why
should your brain care about anyone else, after all? Aren't people
at heart selfish? Don't we all live by the good idea of Every Man
For Himself? Isn't this good idea one of the reasons the world can
be so goddamned unpleasant and people so mean even when there really
isn't any reason for it? Political conservatives often seem to think
so - and sometimes they even enshrine this good idea with little catch
phrases like 'greed is good'.
Well... every
man for himselfness would be a good idea, as you are soon to
discover, if human type thingys could live by men alone. Amazingly,
they can't.
Yeah, the clumps
mixed and all you young studly guys threw yourself into every man
for himselfness and you survived, thanks to being in good enough shape
still to be able to hunt and kill. But nobody else did. Gone are the
pregnant women. The infants. The old people. And everyone else. The
50 or so strongest survived which is turning out to be a little dismaying.
Because both clumps are effectively gone and now it is just you
and a smallish clump of other young guys with no one to mate with.
An interesting
situation. And one perhaps bound to lead to some inventive and creative
ways for relieving sexual frustration which we won't go into. But
not particularly good for your reproductive future. Oh well, nice
try, lights out, human being thingys. No pregnant women, no infants,
no future. Too bad, oh well. Even if a couple of younger, aggressive
women beat some of you over the head, stole your food and lived on,
you are still looking at a serious reproductive bottleneck. Babies
come at great caloric expense and if you are still operating on the
every man for himself principle, none of them are going to make it.
Human race type thingys can't possibly survive unless give the fuck
up on 'every man for himselfness' pretty regularly and instead devote
themselves to caring for those who can't compete on their own merits
- the young, the old, the pregnant, the injured, and so on. You can't
just fuck those people over forever without facing the consequences
- aloneness and extinction. For humans, it's not about the strong,
it's about the Clump. Think about that the next time you're thinking
of kicking some poor person in a wheelchair to the curb, you hateful
person you!
Meanwhile,
you guys who won the 'every man for himself' race might not even have
to worry about a reproductive bottleneck at all because there
might not be any of you left to be concerned with it. Remember
you are in a resource-tight situation and bringing down animals big
enough and fatty enough to keep you going through the hellaciously
cold and unforgiving winter and god knows what else the planet has
up its sleeve - that may very well not be a one-person job. You may
very well be looking at a situation in which you simply have to form
alliances to survive. And if you are forming alliances - it is not
exactly every man for himself any more. It's not like Survivor the
television show where the lone winner takes home a million dollars.
This is home. And there is no million dollars. There
is instead the day-in, day-out grinding reality that you simply must
cooperate with Other People to survive.
For this reason,
Every Man for Himself simply doesn't cut it in human society.
It has its adherents. It has its moments when it is even relatively
speaking the smart strategy. But it always has to be modified Every
Man For Himselfness - modified by the need to at the very least pretend
you are forming mutually beneficial alliances with others. This is
where the virtues of lying, cheating, stealing, and other forms of
deceit humans are naturally good at come into play. But pure old-fashioned
free-for-alls just don't fucking work in the long run. You are
just going to have to share your food at some point.
So now we face
the depressing (or very reassuring depending on your point of view)
reality that some sort of cooperation and alliance-making must be
built. Those poor 100 hungry people are going to have to find some
way to cooperate and form alliances with each other. Human feelings
are still important. Goodness and love still stand a chance!
Altruism suffered a serious setback after Option #1,
but selfishness has just taken a tremendous hit
during the failure of Option #2 and the two traits are now running
neck and neck in a very tight race.
Now you are
anxious for Option #3. Partly because you very fucking quickly
tired of that stuck with 28 other horny guys experiment and you were
almost glad when it came to a brutal end after you all got fed up
and killed each other because it was faster than dying a slow miserable
sex-starved death.
But
what could Option #3 be - haven't you tried everything?
I bet Option #3 is really really
scary.....
prettyfedup.com