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by tedks
4246 days ago
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>The basic evolutionary drive behind our species, and all others, is to reproduce and spread your genes. Everything else stems, however circuitously, from redirected or misdirected reproductive drive. Actually, it's you who's misdirected. Increasing inclusive fitness is the end, not the means, of an evolutionary adaptation. In humans, and in other social species like great apes, the evolutionary adaptation that exists in the species is the desire for power over the environment. A species is an adaptation-executor, not a fitness-maximizer. >but to say that my motivations are identical to those of a senator or a billionaire is ridiculous. It's a matter of ambition, and degree, isn't it? Plenty of people who are otherwise powerless take power through drugs. It's the same game. Some people win more objectively than others. |
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By the rules of your game, a driven executive who makes hundreds of millions of dollars but can't find real satisfaction is more "objectively winning" than a guy who's straddling the poverty line but has everything he needs and is very happy with his life. You don't even realize that the second guy isn't playing the same game. You're playing Monopoly, leaning over to the guy playing checkers across the way, and screeching that he's a loser because he doesn't have any hotels.