The Altruism Problem

At Civilization Systems (h/t Ritholtz):

Are castes, cronyism and corruption a product of our altruism? This natural social drive to care about others is very ancient and stronger than we think. Why should this fundamental of sociability be a problem?
Biological altruism is not about being nice... or at least not always.
Its function is rooted in defining in-group from out-group and is roughly tied to Dunbar's Number (a hypothetical natural human community size related to cognitive limits).

While intellectual and cultural factors truly can and do expand the boundaries of our conception of the in-group....

There will always, by necessity be a disconnect between our lizard brain's reaction vs our reasoning brain's reaction to that fuzzy but very real boundary.

(And its always important to remember that our reasoning brain evolved to serve the lizard brain rather than the other way around.)

You will be more emotionally impacted by the death of your dog than the death of a 100,000 people far away you've never met.

No point in feeling guilty about that... if it were otherwise you'd never be able to function. You'd be prostrate from the onslaught of constant grief. And no society could function with such constant distraction.

Just a little thought for the day.