waveman comments on Akrasia and Shangri-La - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 10 April 2009 08:53PM

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Comment author: DSherron 02 May 2013 04:17:52AM 2 points [-]

I'm a useless social retard, and thus am no longer receiving signals that I'm just-barely-making-it. I am instead receiving I'm-fucked-and-need-to-self-terminate-for-the-sake-of-the-pack signals.

Um, no you're not? This is the theory of Group Selectionism. There is no chemical signal that your brain will naturally produce corresponding to "suicide for the good of the pack". You can arrive at that idea through other means, but there is almost certainly no low-level chemical signal which corresponds to suicide for the good of the group; everyone who might've passed that gene on to you died out for the sake of the people that didn't have it.

Comment author: waveman 28 March 2014 12:41:09PM 0 points [-]

If the pack contains blood relatives, yes it can. See Kin Selection.