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Comment by energy123 | Hacker News Reader

We are a nasty, self-centered species on a biological level. You can patch that with prosperity and culture, but these things are impermanent and subject to regression, so it's not a durable solution. The only durable solution is altering the biology, but that itself is not without significant risk.

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Do you consider yourself nasty and self-centered? Or do you think you're particularly nice, and "we...species" is referencing other people?

Or just say "some people are still nasty and self-centered, although others have at least have decency to care for others after their own needs are satisfied".

I don't agree with the OP, but the OP did say 'on a biological level'. I don't think the OP exists purely on a biological level.

It's possible to believe that humans, as a species, in aggregate, are nasty and self-centered, all while maintaining that individuals can stray from that trendline. There's evidence for this in studies on mob mentality (not just in humans too, but any social animal group) that point to there being an inflection point where either the number of people or the circumstances (or a combination of both) pushes the group to act in predictable - and often nasty - ways.

"a person is smart... people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

- Tommy Lee Jones as "K" in MIB

This is such a useful line, and I think about it all the time. It’s amazing that it came from a blockbuster alien movie.

I consider my intrinsic nature to be that, yes, with contextual constraints like culture and sufficient food preventing that nature from acting in the world. And this is just an observation and a description, it's not a moral judgement. It's how it is.

We are mammals though. Doesn't the mammalian brain make us more empathetic? Or do you think our biology has subverted it somehow?

Compared to what other species? Basically all of them eat each other. Many of them kill their own babies, kill other members of their species who're a competition threat, kill whatever weaker animals they can, etc. I've never heard of another species being altruistic simply for the unselfish welfare of members of other species.

Maybe we're just not good at working in big groups (Dunbar's number) and we need a legal system as a result.

Is the ability to propagate culture part of our biology?

Biology works itself out

Not necessarily, depending on how broad a view of "biology" you're talking. For example, take the many, many, many species that have gone extinct over time. Their biology sure didn't seem to have "work[ed] itself out".

No more reason to care for a species than for an individual sacrificing itself for the group population

Hence "depending on how broad a view of "biology" you're talking".

In any case, by "biology" you're referring to the biosphere? If so, the (potential) risk is that "biology work[ing] itself out" may involve working humans out of the picture as well.

You will die and your great great grand children, in 2100, if any, will have <10% of your dna variability

I'm not sure how that has anything to do with what I said?

In addition, there's the question of whether the variability in human DNA affects the originally described "nasty self-centered" behavior; if it doesn't, no amount of "natural" variability will achieve the described desired outcome.

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