Survival of the fittest does not mean what most people think it means.
Survival of the fittest does not mean what most people think it means. It is NOT just about competition, of tearing others down, nor is it necessarily about who is most physically fit. It's especially important to know this because too many people try to apply survival of the fittest to social stuff, and economics, without understanding the most important implication: Human beings got to where we are today, dominating the planet, because we co-operate.
Yes, people. Sometimes the fittest species are the ones that cooperate. Not just with others of their kind, either. Look at symbiosis, things like lichens where two or more different species combine into one. Hell, if it weren't for cooperation, we wouldn't have multicellular organisms. Or even single-celled organisms as we know them today! (Mitochondria, among others, were originally seperate organisms.)
So I'd say, from that point of view, cooperation is FAR more important than competition. By several dozen orders of magnitude.
Cross-posted from http://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org
Yes, people. Sometimes the fittest species are the ones that cooperate. Not just with others of their kind, either. Look at symbiosis, things like lichens where two or more different species combine into one. Hell, if it weren't for cooperation, we wouldn't have multicellular organisms. Or even single-celled organisms as we know them today! (Mitochondria, among others, were originally seperate organisms.)
So I'd say, from that point of view, cooperation is FAR more important than competition. By several dozen orders of magnitude.
Cross-posted from http://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org