Humans are the Giraffes of Altruism
Humans are the giraffes of altruism. We’re freaks of nature, able (at our best) to achieve antlike levels of service to the group. We readily join together to create superorganisms, but unlike the eusocial insects we do it with blatant disregard for kinship and we do it temporarily and contingent upon special circumstances (particularly intergroup conflict, as is found in war, sports, and business).
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Having the term “contingent superorganism” in our cognitive toolkit may help people to overcome forty years of biological reductionism and gain a more accurate view of human nature, human altruism, and human potential. It can explain our otherwise freakish love of melding ourselves (temporarily, contingently) into something larger than ourselves.
Notes:
Jonathan Haidt explains our our proclivity to help one another makes us a kind of "superorganism."
Folksonomies: humanism altruism
Taxonomies:
/health and fitness/disease/cholesterol (0.408413)
/society/sex (0.373234)
/pets/zoo (0.313864)
Keywords:
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Entities:
Jonathan Haidt:Person (0.847443 (positive:0.697061)), forty years:Quantity (0.847443 (neutral:0.000000))
Concepts:
Eusociality (0.963275): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Superorganism (0.653951): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Altruism (0.616592): dbpedia | freebase
Morality (0.609134): dbpedia | freebase
Richard Dawkins (0.596950): website | dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago | musicBrainz
Superorganisms (0.590392): dbpedia
Species (0.586545): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Natural environment (0.568248): dbpedia | freebase
This Will Make You SmarterSchemas
Altruism
Memes on altruism in human beings and how civilization is our greatest adaptation.
