maycocksean
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
My students have to debate this statement tomorrow. Curious to know what the folks on FYM think.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
You wink, but read up on the evolution of mammals and you will find that resource competition between gestating mothers and parasitic embryos is a very important form of competition; it is part of the reason that placental mammals have been so versatile.My contrarian nature says "not if somebody has already competed for you"
babies can't compete
Competition can lead as much to destruction as to survival.
On a biological level we compete for mates, the survival of our inherited information is dependent on it. That is probably the most relevant issue of competition for most people, and a lot of other competition is arguably reducible to that biological end (with a lot of headroom for superfluous and useless culture, and the fact that culture can be useless from a biological perspective is not necessarily a bad thing).
I would not got as far as adopting Spencerian ethics, but I do think that if you want to succeed in a career you must be ambitious, political, intelligent, and charismatic. Yes we are capable of co-operating, and we are nicer than a simplistic evolutionary model suggests we should be (and that ties into issues of kin selection and reciprocal altruism), but competition is a feature of human society and it has led to some amazing achievements (conquest, moon landings, technological breakthroughs etc.).
It has an important role in economics and politics, in our daily interactions with other people, and within our own families. We aren't just actors who pursue a game-theoretical rational self interest, but a lot of what we intuitively feel we should do happens to match the advantageous strategies developed with those models (the classic tit for tat solution for the iterated prisoners dilemma simulation for instance).
I think that competition is an intrinsic part of human nature, that it will always be part of our character (as opposed to ants, where there is genuine communistic cooperation), and that we can foster a civil society that minimises the harm that our competitive drive causes (so a big yes for safety nets, human solidarity, upward social mobility etc.).
Interesting topic...
One that comes very loaded in this political environment...
This can be twisted many different ways.
Are there any parameters set?
Seems to me we all survive better with cooperation than competition, social creatures that we are. On the other hand, we may excel with competition. Two separate things.
You wink, but read up on the evolution of mammals and you will find that resource competition between gestating mothers and parasitic embryos is a very important form of competition; it is part of the reason that placental mammals have been so versatile.
I would not got as far as adopting Spencerian ethics, but I do think that if you want to succeed in a career you must be ambitious, political, intelligent, and charismatic.