Win Over Him

What I found more interesting in this chapter, You Scratch My Back, I’ll Scratch Yours, was the relationship between the family, affecting how the investment between one another is. I researched in the New York Times an article about selfishness and altruism between family and I found a very interesting one. Steven D. Levitt says in his excerpt, Unbelievable Stories About Apathy and Altruism, that depending on the wealth of an individual there is different love and apathy given to him, he says that studies have shown that, ‘an elderly parent in a retirement home is more likely to be visited by his grown children if they are expecting a sizable inheritance.’’ This is a rather selfish act, that is, for me, being interested, a hypocrite. Dawkins says something similar about female hymenoptera ants. They want to have more sisters than brothers because sister ants are more closely related (genetically) and therefore can replicate themselves more easily. Because of wanting more sisters Dawkins says that, ‘’this might well predispose a female to farm her own mother as an efficient sister-making machine.” (pg. 175) Female hymenoptera ants that are born form queen ants don’t care about their mothers, only if they are able to give them sisters that are ¾ more related to them than if another mother or father give sisters to them. Once again, that is being an interested human being, a hypocrite.

I have come to realize that most of us are interested in other people’s relationship because of our own wellbeing. In the NYT excerpt because of money inheritance and in the hymenoptera ants because of gene inheritance and replicating themselves. If this is so right from the very species of ants, it should not come to a surprise that we encounter hypocrites in our social circles. Levitt says that, ‘’Economists have traditionally assumed that the typical person makes rational decisions in line with his own self- interest.’’ He is arguing whether a person that donates to charity is doing this to fake an altruistic act but his actual interest is having the name of a helper for charity. There is no way to know the actual intentions of a person, more less of an ant. Dawkins doesn’t know which the actual intentions of an ant are. ‘’The war will be won by whoever manages to get more of her genes into the next generation, via the bodies of the reproductives.’’ (pg. 178)I think that the only thing for sure that there is a rivality between all individuals. Humans, siblings, parents, ants, genes, etc. And the way to live through this rivality is by figuring out ways to outnumber the opponent, and win over him.