[npc]

>willing

There was an important word there that you seemed to miss. I didn't say that he who sacrifices more will always win, but they do have more options available to them, so to speak. Please don't think I'm advocating sacrificing health and family in the name of success, far from it. I just don't like this post facto moralizing that glosses over the difficulty of choosing between working late on something that might be critical to the success of your enterprise and going home to see your wife and kids.

[md224]

I think this discussion highlights something very important about any Darwinian system, be it inter-species rivalry or free market competition: evolution has no higher ideals. Whatever is best at domination will dominate; whatever is best at spreading will spread.

People put so much faith in evolutionary processes as if they believe that evolution honors some kind of Platonic ideal. Evolution is a cold process, and it does not give a shit about you or anything you hold dear, unless what you hold dear is conducive to dominance in the specific arena under discussion.

Not to say natural selection is bad or good... I'm just pointing out that it's a value-neutral process, and I think it's a good idea to remember that, especially when we get the urge to derive norms of behavior from evolutionary evidence.