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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Are humans naturally acquisitive and always selfish? * 1
    #28606225 - 01/01/24 06:12 PM (26 days, 19 hours ago)

Modern economic theory depends on the axiom that man is naturally acquisitive and always acts for selfish reasons, ultimately. Most modern humans subscribe to this assumption.

There is in fact no genetic imperative making humans naturally selfish and acquisitive. Indeed, for hundreds of thousands of years we were a cooperative, non-materialistic species. If, for the sake of perspective, planetary evolution took a thousand years, human society as currently constituted would have lasted for less than a day. So, this "natural" acquisitiveness and material hoarding is the exception, not the rule.

We are not programmed by our DNA to be like this. We are programmed by our culture to be like this.

So, in contradistinction to economic and biological ideas, anthropology would tend to indicate that for most of our history we were not inherently acquisitive and always selfish.

Would anyone like to offer a solution to this discrepancy?


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Are humans naturally acquisitive and always selfish? [Re: Nillion] * 1
    #28606319 - 01/01/24 06:59 PM (26 days, 18 hours ago)

Good points. What it really comes down to is the fact that modern human societies, backed up by academia and science, treat human selfishness and the tendency to have as much as possible for oneself as a universal. When in fact, this behavior is only a small particular when considering the anthropological record.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Are humans naturally acquisitive and always selfish? [Re: Lion]
    #28607040 - 01/02/24 12:34 PM (26 days, 1 hour ago)

I would just say that culture evolves from biology only to a point. The similarities between all cultures dictate that this is the case to some degree. Human universals. But on the other hand, and this is modern anthropology's position, it seems there is a lot of evidence that culture can evolve quite independently of genetics.

In a very wide sense, DNA builds the circuits of the brain. But once one is out of the womb and in the world, the way those circuits get wired up varies widely and almost arbitrarily. This would highlight the variety of differences between cultures in time and space on Earth.

So I think for the most part culture is independent of biology, with a few universal behavioral themes.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Are humans naturally acquisitive and always selfish? [Re: blessed]
    #28608370 - 01/03/24 11:41 AM (25 days, 1 hour ago)

That’s not an opinion at all. It reflects a hundred years of ethnographic findings by professional anthropologists. It is academic anthropology’s official position. It is not controversial within the field.


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