Virtual World Study Reveals The Origin of Good and Evil Behaviour
technologyreview.com
technologyreview.com
Thurner and co found that positive behaviour intensifies after an individual receives a positive action.
"The probability of acting out negative actions is about 10 times higher if a person received a negative action at the previous timestep than if she received a positive action," they say.
"We interpret these findings as empirical evidence for self organization towards reciprocal, good conduct within a human society," they say.
In other words, humanity is fundamentally good.
+ Good and bad are both cascade effects.
+ Religion might be seen as a device to "generate" a good motive albeit one external to the immediate environment/circumstance, the goal being to promote "good" behavior in the face of / despite being the recipient of "bad" behavior or circumstances. (The follow on questions might be what is defined as "good" behavior and whom is it benefiting.)
+ Our actions do indeed affect others, and perhaps not just those we are immediately involved with.
+ Altruism is about bettering the environment within which we exist.
Note also that, per the link at the end of the article, this study is not behind a paywall: