Ambitious Temptation

We are ambitious creatures always influenced by victory. The simple fact of winning is probably our biggest accompishment in this society. Although, some people are more ambitious than others and they have no limits when victory is set as their main target.

Prinoner's Dilemma is an excelent potrayal of two types of  people: the ambitious and the altruistic ones. The game consists of two players. There are five rounds where each player decides either to cooperate or to defect. When both players cooperate each other, both win 300 points. When one defects and the other one cooperates, the one that defects ends up winning 500 points and the one that cooperated wins none. Finally, when both defect each other, no one wins points.

At the  end of each round, the ambitious and the altruistic players are evident. In my case, I felt really disappointed because my partner betrayed me. We both agreed to cooperate each other every single time, and I trusted him. After three rounds of cooperating each other, he defected me in the fourth one. This is very interesting because I thought of defecting him that same round, but I changed my mind because I thought he was going to keep his word. Unfortunately, he broke our agreement to benefit himself. At the last round, we both defected each other. He knew I was going to defect him because he noticed I was very mad. It is important to analyze Connor's ambitious temptation. We both felt tempted to defect each other, but Connor's temptation was more intense and he just went for it. I think we were both altruistic at first, but at the last two rounds, neither of us trusted each other. After the game, Connor told me defected me because he thought I was going to defect him. If this is true, this means that Connor didn't defect me in order to gain more points, but because he trusted in his instincts.

"If we translate the colloquial meaning of "nice guy" into Darwinism equivalent, a nice guy is an individual that assists other members of its species, at its own expense, to pass its genes on to the next generation. Nice guys, then, seem bound to decrease in numbers: niceness dies a Darwinism death." (202) In this case, I was the nice guy who lost (died). For me, this model is very coherent because it portrays the different interactions between certain kinds of people, which are actually true. My defeat actually portrays my personality. I obviously didn't want to lose, neither did I want Connor to lose. When I promise something I keep my word. This is exactly what happened in the game until Connor broke the agreement.

Sadly, I am the nice guy, caring of my own species. The bad part is that most people aren't nice people and they only care about themselves. In this world, I am the one who loses.

Understanding Selfish Herds

Throughout chapter ten, Dawkins talks about the selfish-herd model. He states that in this model, there is no place for cooperative interactions. "There is no altruism here, only selfish exploitation by each individual on every other individual. But in real live there are cases where individuals seem to take active steps to preserve fellow members of the groups from the predators." (168) This is very true, every survival machine considers their live before others'. Although, when important members are at risk, this is when the survival machine takes active action in protecting this member. You might be asking yourself what I mean by important. By this I mean that the member might be significant to the herd either by their impressive abilities or because it might be attached to the actual survival machine.

A horse herd portrays the relations between people very easily. I've had the opportunity to be part of a project that involves equine assisted learning with horses. Horses for men have being of great benefit in understanding various psychological aspects. Horses and humans are both really social creatures. They have certain roles in the herd, they are gregarious, which means that they prefer to be in groups than alone. In the other hand, they all have different attitudes and personalities. All of these aspects offer us the opportunity to observe and evaluate the similarities of their behavior with the one of people. There are certain activities performed with large groups of people.

Equine Assisted Learning

Every member in a group has it's role: there is a contributor of ideas, a leader, an opinion-giver, and an energizer. Once, we assisted an activity with the workers of Sony in order to understand the group interaction and situation. The activity consisted of making three horses jump a 30 cm. obstacle without a bridal nor a lead rope. It was quite difficult because the horses were very stubborn. At this moment of difficulty, the different roles of these people were evident. A lady who really feared horses was very nervous and disrupted the whole activity. At this point, the group leader scolded her and the other ones didn't say a word. Here we can interpret the herd model on this group very easily. This woman lacked the qualities to perform the activity actively efficient, which leaded to her exclusion of the group. This happens in animals as well, if one of the members of the herd is not efficient, then it won't matter if a predator eats him because he is not relevant to the herd.

Claus's Loss

There is another really important situation among horse herds. When they are young, they tend to get attached to other horses. This is similar to the attachment children feel for their mothers when they are young. This was the situation between my horse and another one in the herd. When my horse died, he felt very afflicted and we wouldn't interact with other horses nor would he eat. This proved to me that animals actually have a feeling sadness, that when one of their most loved friends or relatives dies, they feel and understand the loss. Up to now, Dawkins hasn't touched the topic about animal feeling, but I guess he would contradict my theory because he thinks survival machines only act with response of their selfish genes. In this case, my horse actually felt the loss of his friend. What I think is that the selfish gene exists, but it is not always present. It is only present in drastic situations, where it is either ones life or the others.'

Another very good example of the selfish-herd model are the insects. "A social insect colony is a huge family, usually all descended from the same mother. The workers, who seldom or never reproduce themselves, are often divided into a number of distinct castes, including small workers, large workers, soldiers, and highly specialized castles like the honey pots." (172) I wish this was our case, but unfortunately we have a different idea of progress. These insects are very altruistic and they cooperate together for the progress of all. In ant societies, there are no leaders. These creatures actually share their learning, which they acquire threw their antenna. As a result, thousands of ants act together with the same idea of surviving together.

Sexual Evolution

Dawkins suggests that all survival machines strive to maximize the number of genes by having sexual intercourse. Isn't it quite odd to mix ones genes with another person's? Every time a couple has a child, their genes are being thrown away, and replaced on their new creation: the child. Isn't it our main purpose in life to reproduce and to form a family? What about homosexuals? Are they some kind of mutation or what?

"What is the good of sex? Sex appears paradoxical because it is an 'inefficient' way for an individual to propagate her genes: each child has only 50 per cent of the individual's genes, the other 50 per cent being provided by the sexual partner. If only, like a greenfly, she would bud-off children who were exact replicas of herself, she would pass 100 per cent of her genes on to the next generation in the body of every child." (43) Our existence is just so perfect, so exact and beautiful. It is amazing to me that our "survival machines" are so perfectly designed to have exactly half of the genes of each parent.

Even though our existence really amuses me, some things seem confusing, such as the existence of homosexuality. It is a very controversial topic with so many theories and assumptions. I personally see it as good thing because it depreciates the amount of over population all over the world. What is worrying to me, are the many homeless mothers with five or six children on the street. This is quite ironic because nowadays the typical middle class family has around two or three children per household. Instead, these poor mothers have over five children living on the street. Why do they decide to have so many children, knowing that they won't have a home and that their dreams and aspirations will just vanish because of their situation.

Our species is probably the most promiscuous on earth, we breed and have sex more than others. Religion is also a very important part of this concept of breeding and eventually forming a family. This idea encourages couples to have more children. Fortunately, this idea is not as present today because we have evolved as a society. My mother has three brothers and two sisters, which was actually not much at the time. Nowadays, that would be a really extensive family. There is a very famous quote that states that "if a man can't look after his family, he is repugnant to the eyes of the lord." This shows that long ago, at the beginning of the 20th century, there was no tolerance with birth control.

If we analyze various historical events that happened during this time, we can see that the ones who suffered the most were the children. The irish famine, the great american depression are just some events that children had to face, due to the fact that no condoms, nor birth control pills existed. This is also seen today. It is actually very present in Bogota with the displaced people who are kicked out from their homeland by Las FARC. They come to the Bogota with their five or six children and start begging on the streets hoping that some day things will be better, but unfortunately they won't. These people also intend to have children even while they live this misery. They probably have them in order to collect more money or to have company as well. This is where altruism takes place. Are these mothers really having their children to offer them a healthy environment or are they having them just to improve their own survival by making them beg for money?

"If sexual, as opposed to non-sexual, reproduction benefits a gene for sexual reproduction, that is a sufficient explanation for the existence of sexual reproduction. Whether or not it benefits all the rest of an individual's genes is comparatively irrelevant. Seen from the selfish gene's point of view, sex is not so bizarre after all." (44) I do not think sex is bizarre, what is strange to me is the concept that has been created about sex. This goes back to my argument about homosexuals. Religion also opposes homosexuality because this means that they are not forming the "traditional family."

I believe sex is simply a feeling of human nature, no matter if it is attraction between men or women or opposite sex. It is simply a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction for every survival machine. The decision of having a baby depends on the couple, no one else should ever make part of this decision.