Cooperation

I've read a few articles on studies on cooperation and selfishness. The results seem clear: selfish individuals tend to profit over cooperative ones within a group, but groups with more cooperative individuals win over groups with more selfish individuals. Here's a piece on how cooperation wins out in the long run and "We found evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean," said lead author Christoph Adami, MSU professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. "For a short time and against a specific set of opponents, some selfish organisms may come out ahead. But selfishness isn't evolutionarily sustainable."


So we can look at governing groups around the world from this point of view and see selfish and mean individuals rising to prominence within their group but that the governmental groups with the best cooperation win out in the long run.  Look at it in a bigger picture: for the human community to survive, the most important point is cooperation. We can see forces going in both directions there. Thus, if this holds true, the species with a preponderance of selfishness is headed for extinction. And because of our dominant role in the biosphere and the whole environment, the selfishness with which we humans have related with other forms of life has shown that we may win out over them from quite limited viewpoints, but we all or almost all will be big losers as a result of our being, with individual exceptions, such selfish meanies.

At this moment I see the whole universe as one big co-op and cooperation as the key to spiritual practice as well although it may be hard to say what I'd be cooperating with.

May all sentient and non sentient cooperators thrive!