Let’s Be Selfish

Would self preservation save us? Let our instinct for self-survival overtake rationality. Say, “to hang with civilization, I’m going it alone!”. We traipse into the woods, or fjord, or swamp. And we begin anew. What’s so bad with letting our selfish thoughts take over?

Well the first challenge we’d face when alone is finding a reliable source of food. Tropical rain forest can support hunter-gathers to the density of one person to four square kilometres. So, yes, it can be done. However, where on Earth do we find four, viable, unsettled square kilometres of this type of land? Should we find such a treasure, how then do we keep the food secure from other hungry souls?

On overcoming the first challenge, we then face the second challenge. With a secure source of food, what do we do with ourselves? As an individual we can’t raise a family, we won’t be communicating, we won’t develop needless technology. We’d eat and either die from old age, from a disease, from an accident or from another predator. Seems this challenge limits the individual to a rather pointless short-term existence.

OK, being individuals won’t save human civilization. Hence we live as a selfish group. How many in a group? A clan of ten needs about 40 square kilometres for gathering food. Where does such an Eden lie on Earth? But, ten people can’t maintain a civilization. Maybe 10,000 people could maintain a slowly flourishing civilization. That number calls for 40,000 square kilometres; about the same area as Switzerland. Switzerland has over 7 million people and it’s no tropical rain forest. Whether for a selfish individual or group, no matter the goal, there’s no space for expansion remaining. Our civilization needs another co-operative solution.

Image – NR Canada


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