A thought...
Watching a documentary on a gold rush, I was struck by a thought. Individuals are notoriously bad at judging risk vs consequence. Modern lotteries are based on this.
But what if the unit for evolutionary selection is not the individual? Without the gold-rush mentality, humans would not have spread nearly as far or succeeded as well as a species if individuals didn't hope for benefit far in excess of their likelihood of success.
But what if the unit for evolutionary selection is not the individual? Without the gold-rush mentality, humans would not have spread nearly as far or succeeded as well as a species if individuals didn't hope for benefit far in excess of their likelihood of success.