Selfish Gene

 Just a quick one.

I listened to a Joe Rogan podcast today - one with guests Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying. Interesting discussion. They have a science/biology background and had some interesting things to say.

I believe they have just written a book - a evolutionary toolkit book. I’m not sure of the details but it seemed it was along the lines of the Selfish Gene by Dawkins. Ie one of those - its all based on fitness for reproduction etc. The passing of genes to the next generation is crucial and bla bla bla. I think this topic came up when Joe had a query about tyranny.

Might be some truth to it. In fact there probably is. But not much in my opinion. Big system wise - it might work, but on micro layer I doubt it. People care about their kids, but a significant minority of people don’t. I don’t think majority of people will destroy themselves or their neighbours for their ‘genes’. Human behaviour is clearly not optimised to sacrifice oneself for children completely. Again, happens to some extent - but not enough to base a whole theory on life off of.

Love, god, altruism, kindness and forgiveness. That is the better toolkit. Effectiveness is the measure of truth, and to love is to be happy.