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Comment by chunky1994 | Hacker News Reader

chunky1994

I suspect that the evolutionary mechanism behind this is that the members of the species (or tribe etc.) who are powerful (leaders?) must have some sense of ruthlessness in order to enable their whole group to survive; and empathy is directly counteractive to ruthlessness.

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That's an awfully friendly reading of what's going on here. I'm not a biologist, much less an evolutionary one, but what I've heard is that explanations for the benefit of the whole group tend to be wrong or at least met with extreme skepticism.

Here's another reading: It could also be that we're wired to exploit situations of power. Isn't it convenient that empathy is reduced when you're more powerful, making it more likely for you to (ab)use that power in your own interest? That seems awfully likely to improve your personal reproductive success...

Indeed, biologists frown on whole group explanations, however I am not suggesting it as an explanation of reproductive usefulness (for the whole group), merely as a successful factor of having a good social standing among the tribe (i.e the chances of someone being more powerful are better if they are able to act as a leader/someone who can protect their tribe), which would quite possibly lead to better mate prospectives.

You have cause and effect backwards here. What research has demonstrated is that success creates lack of empathy. And not that lack of empathy creates better leadership.

Indeed the sociology research that I've seen on the latter question says that leaders who act in an entitled amoral fashion lead fundamentally less effective organizations than leaders who encourage empathy and cooperation.

Any person who, like you just did, talks about evolution in terms of benefits to the group has a fundamental misunderstanding. It is all about spreading your genes.

Group behavior is merely an evolutionary strategy. And interesting group behaviors can only be understood by analyzing how individuals in the group are incentivized.

does it have to be a socially advantageous?

maybe powerful leaders who happened to be ruthless spread their genes ruthlessly, more so than the powerful and benevolent

The post you are replying to is why I take evo-psych explanations with a grain of salt, as your post is just as plausible while it doesn't try to stretch the findings in the article by reducing complex evolutionary processes to explain human society.

edit: ugh, grammar. this is what I get for posting from a phone

Or it could be the way for nature to lead a group to a disaster, a fight with another group. So that better group survives.

That ascribes a lot of agency to nature, and I think will lead you to flawed conclusions.

I am not drawing any conclusion. Just proposing a counter point. Nature has no plans for humanity ofcourse.

Presumably you draw some conclusions ever; I'm just saying you shouldn't use reasoning like above in getting there when you do.

Nature doesn't do duels and doesn't do tests between groups. Those just happen -- but it's not like nature or evolution arranges them to weed out the "lesser" group as your comment implies.

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