Ömer Faruk Alişan
@omeralisan
Doktor
Malatya Fen Lisesi, Ankara Üni. Tıp Fakültesi
Rize, Fındıklı
Rize
26 okur puanı
Mart 2023 tarihinde katıldı
Şu anda okuduğu kitap
This is precisely the question Fehr and Gächter asked. They set up an experiment putting together several groups of four participants, each equipped with a certain amount of money (in this case, twenty Swiss francs or ‘monetary units’). For several rounds, the participants were able to decide how much should be contributed to the public pot. The payment options were regulated so that it was most worthwhile for the individual to make no contribution at all, or only a very small one. For the whole group, however, it was better if everyone always put in the maximum. Six rounds were played, with the following results: the participants’ willingness to cooperate – represented as the average contribution thrown into the public pot per round – started weak and soon fell sharply. By the end of the sixth round, the players kept most for themselves. Only when they played the game a second time were the participants given the opportunity to ‘punish’ the meanest players. For every monetary unit spent by one player on punishing another uncooperative player, three monetary units were deducted from the player who was punished. The effect on the overall willingness to cooperate was spectacular: by the end of these six rounds, the level of cooperation had reached almost the maximum possible (the maximum being the result if everybody behaved cooperatively all of the time). Punishing individuals who refuse to cooperate therefore solves the problem of freeloading, at least in an experimental setting.
The domestication syndrome’s genetic basis was only decoded a decade ago.16 For a long time, how and why selection in favour of friendliness and willingness to cooperate – whether natural or through breeding – simultaneously produces this domestication syndrome was simply a mystery. What does diminished aggression have to do with floppy ears and white markings? There is now very clear evidence to show that the solution to this mystery lies in a special type of stem cell known as neural crest cells. During early embryonic development, these stem cells eventually form the adrenal glands, which play an important part in producing and regulating stress and anxiety hormones. Domestication is ultimately a process that indirectly results in underactive adrenal glands. In the early developmental stages of vertebrate embryos, these neural crest cells are located in a specific position, at the dorsal end (towards the back) of the neural tube, which later forms the central nervous system. As the embryo develops, this cell type migrates both to the adrenal glands and to the skull and extremities. Since neural crest cells are coincidentally involved in forming the skull and teeth and also influence pigmentation, they can result in white markings and shorter snouts with smaller teeth. Domestication syndrome is therefore due to a selection in favour of a certain form of adrenal deficiency. This deficiency affects both the hormones regulating fear and aggression and the cell type, leading, as a by-product, to less pigmentation and reduced skull growth.
Around 500,000 years ago, we learned to use social sanctions to make uncooperative behaviour relatively unprofitable. In the most extreme case, a person’s tendency to tyrannise, subjugate, bully, attack or even just exploit others led to this person simply being murdered, often in a deliberate act by those who had finally had enough. A species that kills its most belligerent, aggressive and ruthless members over hundreds of generations creates a strong selection pressure in favour of peacefulness, tolerance and impulse control. We are the descendants of the friendliest.
Five million years ago, we discovered the benefits of co operation. But cooperation is always costly, and uncooperative behaviour remains profitable. To become stable in evolutionary terms, we had to limit our cooperative efforts to a small group of people: we became altruistic and helpful, but only in combination with a psychology that divided people into ‘us’ and ‘them’. Our morality became group-oriented. But how did we succeed in enforcing cooperative structures in larger groups so that we could build on the advantages of cooperative behaviour? What moral transformations were necessary to make antisocial behaviour even more costly, and to make us more helpful, peaceable and social?
The problem is that it’s even better for an individual if everyone else cooperates but if he or she can outsmart all the other people. In other words, uncooperative behaviour is always the best choice for every single person, regardless of whether or not other people cooperate: if I’m going to be lied to, I’m better off lying myself. If the others are honest, I’m still better off lying. Non-cooperation becomes the dominant strategy, and so mutual non-cooperation emerges as a stable Nash equilibrium: no one person can unilaterally break out of this equilibrium without putting themselves at a disadvantage. The paradox in the prisoner’s dilemma is that it shows how individual rationality and collective reasoning can fall apart. When everyone acts rationally on an individual basis, the results are collectively suboptimal. The fruits of cooperation remain unharvested.
The American ecologist observed that natural resources – farmland or fish stocks, for example – tend to be exploited beyond the limits of their capacity if they are not privately owned. Regardless of how others behave – sustainably or exploitatively – the best strategy for every individual is to over-exploit the resource in question. The benefits of this misconduct can be absorbed by every individual; the costs are ‘externalised’ to the rest of the collective.