It’s easy to understand why natural selection favors people who help close kin at their own expense: It can increase the odds the family’s genes are passed to future generations. But why assist distant relatives? Mathematical simulations by a University of Utah anthropologist suggest “socially enforced nepotism” encourages helping far-flung kin.
The classic theory of kin selection holds that “you shouldn’t be terribly nice to distant kin because there isn’t much genetic payoff,” says Doug Jones, an associate professor of anthropology and author of the new study. “Yet what anthropologists have observed over and over is that a lot of people are pretty altruistic toward distant kin”.
Jones seeks to expand the classic theory with his concept of socially enforced nepotism, which he calls a “souped-up version of the theory of kin selection” in his study published June 15, 2016, by the Public Library of Science’s online journal PLOS ONE.
Socially enforced nepotism “depends on the moral regulation of behavior according to socially transmitted norms”, he writes in the study.
The findings suggest that “a lot of why you help your kin, including distant kin, isn’t necessarily because you like them so much but because it’s your duty, your responsibility, and other people care whether you do it”, he says. (1)
Mathematics to calculate compassion. Numbers to measure ethics. Some years ago this would be considered blasphemy. Now we are gods and nothing is considered blasphemy. Now we are gods. Because we have killed God. Not with weapons or philosophy. But with sheer stupidity. We simply chose to believe in equations. We simply chose to believe in numbers.
Now nothing exists.
Except numbers.
One. Zero.
Well, mainly zero.
All other numbers are simply additions to zero.
In the old times philosophers believed in One. Once upon a time we started believing in Zero. And mathematics were created.
We have built our lives on nothingness.
And this is what we end up with.
As below, so above.
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