“The mind developed as a way of furthering competition with our fellow living beings”

We keep mentioning “natural competition” without also mentioning its balancing partener: “natural cooperation”. I’m not sure of the reasons behind it but in my opinion this cannot happen without some measure of primitive pulsations distracting the mind from seeing the evidence — like someone very perceptive once said: “an uniquely human state-of-the-art module for perceiving and making decisions was bolted on the emotional apparatus of an iguana”. Apparently iguanas don’t show that much consideration towards others and towards cooperation.

Competition without cooperation is rust for any kind of structure, it’s auto-immune disease for any kind of organism — be it society as a whole or particular endeavors like science, they’re in great measure the product of cooperation. The secret of any human individual, even the most individualistic of them, is the vast geographic and historical network of cooperation underneath.

Everything we recognize as human triumph is testimony of a mind which evolved to cooperate! Take that colossal lacework of cooperation from underneath anyone’s butt and what remains is the blind boorish might of a rather weak animal.