:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Thursday, November 11, 2004 ::

Dennett on freeloaders...

I've been reading Freedom Evolves by Daniel Dennett and a passage just struck me:

Physicists are forever reminding us that things break down, things get muddled, things don't tend to repair themselves unless something special--such as a living thin, a local entropy-battler--intervenes. Economists, similarly, are forever reminding us that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Evolutionists in the same spirit remind us that freeloaders will always show up eventually, and when they do they will soon enough win the local breeding contests unless something is put in place to prevent it.

Freeloaders will always show up... at the human level freeloaders are the elites; political at the top of the pyramid, and then social/cultural/religious--all of which are freeloaders one step below the political elites. He goes on to say:

Whatever the local game, and whatever the costs and benefits to the group (the locally interacting population that must share the space and resources and risks), if it is possible to share the benefits of group action without paying one's share of the costs, then those who pursue this selfish path will do better than those who don't....

...Pretty soon there is a growing tribe of freeloaders, and no matter how well or ill the group as a whole does, within the group nobody does better than the freeloaders, who gradually come to dominate the group.

:: Jim Nichols 11/11/2004 03:21:00 PM [+] ::
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