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413 lines
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Underground eXperts United
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Presents...
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[ Altruism And The Open Source Movement ] [ By Freon ]
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____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
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-------------------------------------
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ALTRUISM AND THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT
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-------------------------------------
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- Introduction -
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This document is an attempt by the author (that would be me) to mix three
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things. First, my hobby - writing text files. Second, and indeed also
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third, the stuff I've been doing at University lately - Computing Science
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(which doubles as a makeshift religion of sorts, for me and countless
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others) and Psychology. Now, why would a sensible (if weird) text file
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author like myself be doing this?
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Well, I'm trying to prove, to myself if to nobody else, that there's nothing
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wrong with doing joint honours Computing Science and Psychology.
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Having said that, I do think this should make an entertaining ramble for
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anyone who's charting the progress of the Open Source Revolution to read
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and ponder about.
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Anyway, enough rambling; on with the document proper!
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- When is a penguin like a ground squirrel? -
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The answer is of course, never. Never in a month of Sundays is a penguin
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even remotely like a ground squirrel. It's just that I needed an
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entertaining title, penguins happen to be closely associated with GNU/Linux
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and the Open Source rebellion in general, and I'm about to go off on an
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otherwise apparently unconnected tangent about Ground Squirrels.
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Yes, you can barely /say/ the word 'altruism' in the presence of a
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psychologist (or, in my case, a first year psychology student - but don't
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let the low status of your humble scribe devalue the extremely important
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- nay, critically important - things I'm going to beat around the edges
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of without actually managing to express) without conjuring up in his/her*
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mind at least one or two images of these furry little creatures.
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You may well ask why that might be - why are these sweet little toothy
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burrowing rodents so intimately entangled with this concept of rewardless
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self-sacrifice?
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Well, actually they're not.
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The idea is this. If a ground squirrel sees a predator nearby, a 'smart'
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thing to do - and in a capitalist society, of course, by 'smart' I mean
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'selfish' - would seem to be to make a run for the nearest hole in the
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ground and quietly get out of the way, leaving friends and acquaintances
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in the dark - or rather, in the jaws of the aforementioned ground squirrel
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devouring beastie.
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Instead of taking this perfectly sensible attitude, these silly little
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critters will rear up spectacularly, drawing attention from all around,
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and test their (somewhat unprofessional sounding) singing voices when
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such an occasion should face them. This we silly unscientific
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non-behaviourists (yes, I'm stuck in the late nineteenth century, and
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proud of it. None of this cognitive what-you-may-call-it and Freudian
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philosophy-dressed-as-science for me, thank you very much) have termed
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an 'alarm call.'
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Now I don't have a problem with this term really, except that it implies
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that either the creature is using this call because it's alarmed - that
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is to say, frightened - or that it's using it to raise the alarm. In
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fact, neither is the case and I must insist as a behaviourist that the
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only scientific explanation we can venture as to why it does this, as far
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as /it/ can tell, in its little heart of hearts, is "Just because!"
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Anyway, wandering off the tracks there.
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So, the little furry volunteer risks becoming the little furry martyr
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for the sake of its little furry chums. Very nice, very sweet, very
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altruistic.
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Except of course that it isn't.
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The diminutive fluffy sentry is not putting itself at risk to save its
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friends - it's putting its personal self at risk to protect its genes.
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This sounds silly of course - what does a ground squirrel know about
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evolution? Well, the answer is pretty simple really. Like the rest of
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us, it doesn't really understand as such (as far as we know) but it's
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getting pretty good at it after millions of years of practice. You don't
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have to be /smart/ to make the right decision in the /real/ world - just
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well designed. And of course, millions of years of trial and error do
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tend to encourage good designs.
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The squirrel does this simply because the squirrels near it are likely
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to have similar genes to its. A bunch of ground squirrels with this
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natural tendency to 'altruistic' behaviour of this sort is more likely
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to survive and produce offspring /between them/ than a group that doesn't
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do this trick - so although the individual is putting himself at risk,
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he's working quite nicely for the future of his genes. The thing that
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you have to bear in mind is that instinctive behaviour comes pretty
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directly from evolution, and evolution doesn't care about individuals
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as such.
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To return to the point; altruism is supposed to be behaviour which appears
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not to bring reward to the individual exhibiting that behaviour. In fact,
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unlike many cynical bastards of my ilk, I must say that I do believe in
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the existence of altruism. The catch is that it's completely selfish.
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If you keep your definitions carefully strict, that isn't a contradiction.
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As long as you can be selfishly successful without personal gain to the
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individual, altruism does exist.
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- OK; so what about complete strangers helping each other? -
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Where?
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No, seriously, where?
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Even among ground squirrels (no I'm /not/ obsessed!) complete strangers
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will not help each other. For example, females, in ground squirrel
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society, are more likely to live near others that are genetically close
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to them (for example, their offspring) while the males are more likely
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to wander around and live near strangers. Females also much more likely
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to make alarm calls than males. So the females, who are more closely
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related, on average, to more of the nearby other ground squirrels, are
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more likely to help them.
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An interesting aside. Females of /our/ species have quite a reputation
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for being more likely to make alarm calls, too. That is to say, if you
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go to a scary movie, you're more likely to hear a girl yelp right the way
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through it (usually at the bits that /aren't/ that scary) than a bloke.
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Hey, don't look at me like that! It's the truth.
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Even more interesting is our /attitudes/ to alarm calls in humans, and how
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they vary according to the sexes. Across cultures, it's true to say that
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when a male makes an alarm call (i.e. screams) it's got to be a pretty
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damn serious situation, or he'll be frowned upon by his contemporaries and
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lose the respect of men and women alike. When a woman makes an alarm
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call, we say it's perfectly normal, perfectly natural, it was a scary
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situation (no matter how perfectly mundane that experience was).
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In other words, for humans, just like ground squirrels, both sexes think
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it makes good sense for a female to make an alarm call, but neither thinks
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much of the male that makes one, except in particularly dire circumstances
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(and we might let 'em off with that just because we don't want to look
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heartless and take the piss while they look around for the crocodile who
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was last seen swimming off with one or other of their appendages).
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Perhaps closer to home is an example I can actually footnote! Humans
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tend to help people they're closely related to more readily than those
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they aren't. I'm not a good scholar so I'm not going to footnote this
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properly, but I will give credit where it's due since I have the names
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and dates handy; a study of American women by Essock-Vitale and McGuire
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in 1985 showed that they were much more likely to be helped by close
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relatives (like parents or children) than relatively distant ones (like
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aunts and uncles). You could turn this into a fun and profitable all-
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in-the-family money begging experiment if you like (and are morally
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and/or financially bankrupt enough to have the brass to do it).
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Edward O. Wilson (A biologist, not a psychologist as such**) also agreed
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that closeness of family relationships - or, in other words, genetic
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similarity - between individuals influenced helping. He pointed out
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that all over the world, across cultures, there is a lot of emphasis
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in human societies on the importance of family and kinship (E. O. Wilson,
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1975) - and there's likely to be a lot more 'altruism' within family
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groups than between them, with most helping going on between family
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members that share the most genes. This, if you ask me, is a lot like
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the way female ground squirrels (and, if the ladies will forgive me,
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humans also) are more likely to selflessly warn others of what they
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perceive as dangerous situations with a shrill*** wailing cry.
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- What the /hell/ has this got to do with Open Source?! -
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I'll get to that.
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- Real and perceived kinship -
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So far, when I've talked about genetic similarity, what I've really been
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talking about is kinship. I've mentioned the word a couple of times,
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pretty much interchangeably with the phrase 'genetic similarity' - but
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actually there's an important difference.
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The thing is, real kinship - genetic similarity - alone can't explain
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all apparently 'selfless' behaviour. A couple of popular examples are
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religious martyrs (who in a way I suppose give the ultimate 'alarm call'!)
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and people who join the armed forces - particularly those who volunteer
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for suicide missions.
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Now, it's very easy to say, "Yeah, they must be some pretty f_cked up
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people!" That isn't necessarily the case though. It's also possible
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to say "Yeah, well that's real altruism - that fairly blows your silly
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kinship theory out of the water doesn't it? Your faith in human nature
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restored now, freon, ya cynical bastard? Ah, isn't the Human Being
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a Wonderful Thing. You don't get /that/ kind of behaviour in your silly
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/ground squirrels/ do you? Eh? Eh?" To which I reply, "Piss off."
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No, you see - they're not f_cked up, but I must insist that there's
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nothing that's 'real' about this altruism that's any 'realer' than the
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ground squirrel (or human being, for that matter)'s altruism when it
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yells to its comrades when startled****.
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You see, us animals don't operate on the basis of facts. Our thoughts,
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our plans, our insights, and indeed also our instincts and just plain
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reflexes (yes, even the knee jerk, but I can't be bothered explaining.
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It's trivial(TM) and will be left as an exercise for the reader(R)) are
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actually always based on our /perception/ of the facts - which is rarely
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precisely in line with the facts themselves. You don't sit down on a
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chair, you perform an action that you think is sitting on what you
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believe to be a chair - it might well be an alligator, if you happen to
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be on LSD and you live in a place where there are frequently alligators
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around.
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Right, so you don't display altruistic behaviour towards someone based
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on your actual genetic closeness - your /real/ kinship, if you will - to
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them, but based on the kinship you /perceive/. And perceived kinship
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can be a complicated thing.
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Here's a simple example.
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There is a society (unfortunately my books go into little detail) somewhere
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where it is customary for the bride to move in with the groom after
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marriage - but not just with the groom, but his entire family. The children
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have little contact with their maternal aunts and uncles, but a lot of
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contact with their paternal aunts and uncles, who will live in the same
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hut or one nearby. When asked which uncle or aunt they'd be most likely
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to go to for help, or receive help from, they reliably answer immediately
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that they would go to the paternal uncle first, although they are equally
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closely related to the uncles on both sides of the family. The uncles
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agree with the nephews on this one - the maternal uncles are much less
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likely to help than the paternal ones (Sahlins, 1976).
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So, this extends to soldiers who volunteer for suicide missions because
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these soldiers feel that they are a member of some kind of family which
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includes their fellow soldiers, and often others, including such bizarre
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abstracts as their 'home country' or state, or perhaps the people they
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think they're protecting. Religious martyrs feel a strong sense of kinship
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with the other followers of their religion, and possibly also with their
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religions' fictional characters, such as gods or other such mythical
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creatures.
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This, it could be argued, ties up the last knot in the altruism argument
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and explains basically everything in terms of genetic selfishness; an
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evolved predisposition toward helping those that you consider to be your
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family, whether or not they actually are.
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- And finally, Open Source -
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I think this explains Open Source quite nicely. You see, people (like
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myself, and many better programmers as well) are happy to spend hours
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working on a project (hey, much like this text file) without expecting
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any kind of return.
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I program, and others program, and release their software Open Source so
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that it can be of the most possible use to everyone. If asked, that's
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the reason we'll all give - just to be helpful, you know? I write text
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files, and others write text files, just because we love to write and
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we want to entertain and possibly even inform people. That's the excuse
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we give.
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The real reason is that the vast majority of people who run our programs
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and mess around with our programs and really appreciate their internal
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workings are people like us - the people of the Open Source community -
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the people of the Open Source family, if you will. We perceive a strong
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kinship with the other members of this community, and that's why we'll
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keep doing it - for the good of our genes, or so we imagine.
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And that's why we'll win the war of software - and possibly why the
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textfile will never die, to boot. Because we're writing files and putting
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together programs for the good of our enormously extended worldwide
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family.
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- But of course, it's all a misunderstanding! Isn't it? -
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Do we write because we're deluding ourselves, or because we're mistaken?
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Has evolution unwittingly created a failure by giving us big brains that
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are so easily confused about just who is family and who isn't? Is the
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Open Source community, or the Computer Underground (whatever that /means/
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in this day and age), or the 'text file scene' (that's got to mean even
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less than CU nowadays!) our invading cuckoo? Are these synthetic tribes
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just eating up our creative time, when we should be using our brains to
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go out there and win in this capitalist world?
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I mean, sure. I've seen a lot of damn fine programs given away for free.
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Apache. Linux, of course. Thousands of hours, hundreds of thousands of
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hours of work - for /no/ return! I've seen text files all over the place
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that were 'real publisher quality' - people could be selling a lot of the
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things I've seen in ezines in my time, but they're not. I know people who
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could be making a real personal success story out of things, financially
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speaking, who aren't - because of these perceived kinships and artificial
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families.
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This is the Ultimate Altruism - creative people creating, only to give the
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fruits of their labour away. But is the Ultimate Altruism, when shrouded
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in inaccurate perceptions of the boundary of the family, just the Ultimate
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Folly? Won't it all fall apart when someday the penny just drops?
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- Hell no! Go to it, and good luck! -
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Of course not. Because our perceived kinship /is/ based on a real kinship.
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It's just that we've /outgrown/ this basic gene-for-gene comparison
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idea. We're sharing thoughts. Ultimately, we're sharing /software/.
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And in the end, isn't that what life's all about?
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(Think Software EXchange...)
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There is no cuckoo*****! Nothing is falling apart! It's just moving on.
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Celebrate! This is progress, and for a change it looks like there's some
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chance it /won't/ actually kill us all! This is, finally, a real
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revolutionary struggle with some chance of beating the international
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capitalists; computers and networks have given us the chance to fight
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international selfishness with international altruism within the
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international family.
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We're right not to use our skills to try to win the capitalist world. The
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real mission that all Open Source Software and textfile authors are happily
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taking on in the name of the common good is the fight to win /against/
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the capitalist world.
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I for one am looking forward to seeing one or two more hi-tech
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hippies... Anyone know where I can download some grass? :-)
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---
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Reference:
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Here I'll do my best to give a little more detail about where the credit
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is due, since I feel guilty about just breezing past names like McGuire
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and Essock-Vitale and Sahlins in the above text:
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Essock-Vitale, S. M., and McGuire, M. T. 1985. Women's lives viewed from
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an evolutionary perspective: II. Patterns of Helping.
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/Ethology and Sociobiology/ 6:155-73
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Sahlins, M. 1976. The use and abuse of biology. Ann Arbor: University of
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Michigan Press
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Wilson, E. O. 1975. Sociobiology. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
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Press.
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Miscellaneous recommended further reading:
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http://www.uXu.org/
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http://www.gnu.org/
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http://www.tuxedo.org/
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"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (Robert Pirsig)
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"Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age" (Neal Stephenson)
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"Messiah" (Gore Vidal)
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"Ring Around the Sun" (Clifford D. Simak)
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---
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* Normally, when writing in English, a random theoretical invented
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person of undefined sex is referred to as 'he'. So if I do
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that from this point on, it's /normal/, not just that I'm sexist.
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** ...but we won't hold that against him...
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*** Actually, the learned (and arguably /old/) amongst you might
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get a small chortle out of the fact that the pitch of a human
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scream is, on average, dead on 2.6KHz. Nice one, eh? Who needs
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blue boxes? I have a random punter off the street and a photo
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of Margaret Thatcher! Pheer! I wonder if I can get a few
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useful tones out of a ground squirrel...?
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**** Of course, it's not /really/ yelling to its comrades. Interesting
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thought, isn't it? That the human scream is equivalent to the
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alarm call in blackbirds, robins, ground squirrels (OK, OK, I'll
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shut up about the damn ground squirrels!) etc. It's interesting
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because when you get an enormous fright and yelp, are you screaming
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/to/ anyone? The answer is of course NO! You're doing it
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'involuntarily'. A nice little ancient instinct that we share
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with the ground squirrels (sorry) and the birds and so on. Which
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kind of knocks all the glory out of ground squirrel - sorry,
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avian - altruism in a way. <sigh>. Well, can't have everything,
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can you? (Oh dear God...I've just realised that I just devalued
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all my arguments in the space of one footnote. Still, gotta leave
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it in now. With any luck nobody'll read it anyway.)
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***** No, I just wanted to have a ridiculous number of asterisks after
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the word 'cuckoo'. There's nothing to see here. Go away.
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- freon (http://www.nkpwhq.com/~freon/ ... freon@kmfms.com)
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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uXu #607 Underground eXperts United 2002 uXu #607
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http://www.textfiles.com/ | http://scene.textfiles.com/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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