The Logic of Survival

Natural Selection is a powerful shaper of our world. In particular, it is a shaper of the human species. Its results today are based on a sample size of about 8 billion people. It has guided our our development over hundreds of thousands of years so its effects on us must be respected. Two obvious qualities that natural selection has imposed on us, are firstly most of us have a high drive to survive and secondly most of us are sociable. How does sociability improve one’s ability to survive? Firstly, sociable people are more likely to form cooperative groups. Such groups have more resources and skills available than individuals, so are able to solve more demanding problems. We distinguish two kinds of cooperative groups; groups that make their survival, their prime objective and those groups that don’t.

Definition: A survival group is a collection of people who share the common purpose of maximising the group’s chances of long-term survival.

Examples of survival groups are a nuclear family (parents with children), an extended family, a tribe, a nation, an international group (eg a religion) and humanity itself. Note: an individual human cannot be a survival group, because a human is mortal while a survival group is potentially immortal. Further, it is clear that long-term survival refers to the survival of our DNA.

It is reasonable to presume that natural selection favours survival groups over non-survival groups.

Secondly, among survival groups, how does natural selection choose the fittest? All things being equal, the fittest groups are those who make the better survival decisions. So we must study how to make good decisions that aim to maximise the group’s chances of long-term survival.

Firstly, we must recognise that within a survival group, some subgroups are more significant than others. The most significant subgroups are children and fertile adults. The point is that the survival group must give their needs priority over those of the other subgroups. However, fertile females are more significant than fertile males because if half the fertile females suddenly disappeared the group’s birth-rate would be halved. Whereas if half the fertile males suddenly disappeared, the birth-rate could be maintained by the males working a bit harder. This is why, in wars, it is the males who are sent to the front to do the fighting and the dying. The number of fertile females is a limiting factor on the growth of a survival group. While males are more expendable.

Another significant subgroup are the “nurturers”. These are people who use their expertise to support families in their quest to maximise their survival chances. This subgroup includes doctors and nurses, teachers of survival skills, the police and so on. In primitive tribes, there are subgroups of elderly, experienced women who supervise women giving birth. They use their experience and tribal knowledge to maximise the chances of survival. of the mother and child.

Another less significant subgroup are the “social benefit volunteers”. These are the people who give their time and skills to perform socially desirable tasks. For instance, voluntary work for charities that support families is included. Other tasks include collecting and analysing data that is of social benefit like the amount of pollution in our rivers and on our shores. These subgroups need recognition of their work and legal protection from being exploited.

The least significant subgroup is the “has-beens”. These are the people who are no longer able or no longer willing to contribute to the survival group’s welfare.. Their needs should only be catered for when the needs of more significant subgroups have been adequately satisfied. They are at the back of the queue. Mother Nature is a hard mistress. At the end of our lives, we have no right to happiness, only the consolation of fulfilling Nature’s purpose by living a life supporting the survival our families’ DNA and our own.

To summarise, part of the process of maximising the chances of a group’s long-term survival, its leaders should prioritise the needs of subgroups as follows; children and fertile females above fertile males above nurturers above “social benefit volunteers” above “has-beens”.

Almost all of us belong to more than one survival group. This gives rise to the problem of allegiance. For example, at the present time, a Ukrainian young man owes his allegiance to his family and to his nation. Which allegiance should dominate? It is a personal decision by each person based on the situation. In general, we would recommend that ordinary citizens owe their allegiance (and their lives) to their family in a dictatorship and to their nation when it’s a democracy, if it deserves it. This warns us to be wary of anyone whose dominant allegiance is not owed to our democracy.

It is now clear why sociable people are favoured by natural selection. They form cooperative survival groups that maximise the chances of their long-term survival because of the group’s superior decision-making process. This process of decision-making is so vital that we need to study it in more detail.

Consider a nuclear family of parents and their young children. We notice the following features:

1. All family members are highly motivated to cooperate with each other,
2. They communicate often and well with each other. This enables them to identify their problems and to discuss and evaluate possible solutions. The only way they can communicate well with each other is if they treat each other with respect even when under stress,
3. Usually, they debate and compromise until they select a solution by consensus,
4. A common guiding principle in decision-making is that everyone should be treated fairly, but not necessarily equally. Applying this concept aids family cohesion.
5. Occasionally, they cannot reach agreement, so they take a vote. It is essential that the losers either accept the decision or stand aside. What they must not do, is to try and undermine a decision reached democratically because it makes the voting process worthless and the family dysfunctional,
6. It is wise for the winners to console the losers, especially if the parents have to impose a solution. In this case, they should be transparent and clearly explain their actions to make them more acceptable, This maintains everyone’s motivation and family cohesion,
7. In general, the family cooperates to implement their solution effectively and efficiently. Constructive criticism is welcome, especially when the unexpected occurs.

So a nuclear family is potentially the ideal decision-making machine. The essential elements are people motivated to survive, good and frequent communications, evidence-based respectful evaluation of possible solutions, democratic resolution of any conflict plus cooperative implementation. In general, we call these “family values”.

Of course, some nuclear families have poor family cohesion. This can be due to its members being loners or the families contain a dominant member who imposes their decisions on the rest. This risks the families making poorer decisions, upsetting other family members possibly leading to family dysfunction and fragmentation.

So even at the family level, we see the three basic forms of organisation; anarchy, dictatorship and democracy.

As we consider survival groups of increasing size, the necessary conditions required for effective decision-making become more and more liable to degrade. To prevent this degradation requires constant awareness and repair.

Some Examples of larger Survival Groups

In an extended family, communication between the youngest and oldest members becomes more difficult. The youngest tend to have the needs but the oldest tend to have the resources. While everyone is motivated, the youngest and oldest can disagree about the most urgent problems and their acceptable solutions especially as the oldest are usually expected to pay. Negotiation to consensus is recommended as failure could fragment the family. This puts the onus on the elders to maintain frequent communication and to invest in the .future of the young.

In many tribes, there are too many people to make the everyday decisions required. Instead, the tribe selects a council of elders who are hopefully the wisest and most capable tribal members. They are trusted to make the everyday decisions after debate leading to consensus. If they cannot reach consensus or the problem is particularly important, they call an assembly of all tribal members. After everyone has had the opportunity to have their say, they hold a vote. This vote is binding on the tribe. Everyone is expected to support and implement the solution. Anyone who cannot accept the result of the vote, is expected to leave the tribe. This process is called assembly democracy. Often the tribal culture consists of various concepts. In particular, individuals willing consider themselves as part of the tribe and so accept being disposable if tribal survival is threatened. But then, the tribe takes the responsibility for the survival and nurture of all babies born within the tribe.

There are some tribes ruled by a dictator. There are others with figurehead kings while the real power lies with a council of elders.

In general, one believes that the closer a tribe adheres to the family values of the nuclear family, the better its chances of long-term survival are. Indeed, one believes that to be true for all survival groups.

In general, as we inspect larger and larger survival groups, we see that good government becomes more difficult and the group more likely to fragment. Different nations have adopted various democratic processes mainly by instinct and intuition. The problem is that no nation has a clear idea of what a democracy is and how to protect it.

Democracies are more fragile than dictatorships because they are more complex. This means that democracies can fail in more ways. In particular, if too many people break the law and get away with it then more and more people are encouraged to do the same until law and order break down. All these anti-social acts like the police not reacting to thefts below £500, and strikes allowed to inconvenience the public over a long period are really anti-democratic acts that have the potential to undermine an elected government.

For the moment, we won’t study larger survival groups like nations because there are so many variants of socio-political organisation. Many of them are designed instinctively to recapture some of the features of the ideal nuclear family. The problem with the instinctive approach is that no-one is sure what the essential features are. So the seeds of confusion and dissent are sown. A major goal of democrats is to collect the jig-saw pieces of democracy and to put then together so we can all see the whole picture. This we start to do in the section “The Logic of Democracy”.

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