Posted by anthonyberet on 10/18/05 22:46

hawat.thufir@gmail.com wrote:
> anthonyberet wrote:
> ...
>
>>To take the example of theft: In animal terms, a predator who chases
>>away weaker predators from their kill has an advantage over the weaker
>>predator - it doesn't need to risk injury, or develop the skills to
>>catch the prey, and thus might be more likely to survive to have
>>offspring than the weaker predator.
>>It wouldn't be the same in human society, because human society has laws
>>and punishments. A thief is less likely - other things being equal- to
>>reproduce than a non-thief, because of his increased risk of death,
>>injury or imprisonment.
>>Of course, this is a simplistic example - other forces are at work in
>>both situations.
>
>
> A corollary to theft would also be cheating on a spouse; or maybe it's
> the other way around. In either case there's a definite advantage to
> cheating and stealing, sometimes. On the other hand, most "career"
> criminals spend alot of time in jail, which should be a big deterrent,
> unless you're a white collar criminal.
>
> However you slice it, there's a definite advantage to
> theft/cheating/etc for humans. To come at that from the reverse angle,
> because we do it then presumably that offers an advantage to not
> cheating/stealing/whatever. However, it only works if a small minority
> of people are criminals. If everyone stole all the time, well, no
> society would work--I hope that's obvious.
>
> There are always going to be people who tape tv shows, or record
> concerts, or photocopy books, etc, because it's particularly easy. I'm
> not even convinced it's immoral.
>
While stealing might confir some advantage to humans, is it the kind of
advantage that results in having more offspring?
- If not, then it would be inappropriate to bring natural selection into it.

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