Social Survival: The Missing Instinct

Pretty much every creature on Earth has a strong survival instinct. After all, that’s what allowed us to evolve into what we are. Our ancestors knew when to run, knew when to climb a tree and knew when to stand and fight. Those that didn’t, well you know the story. Billions and billions of individual survivors who didn’t get a Darwin Award led up to us over eons. Anyone like me who has had a near death or life threatening experience knows the kick of adrenaline that puts us into super drive where we can run a little faster, jump a little higher or whatever it takes to live. The survival instinct has many manifestations. In the city, you might know to cross the street when you see trouble ahead on the block. Even the simple act of putting on a seat belt belies an innate sense of self preservation. Of course, not everybody has what it takes and so Nature coldly hands out Darwin Awards 24 hours a day every day.

This Survival of the Fittest Individual worked pretty well for hundreds of millions of years right up to the Industrial Revolution where we started to amplify our biological abilities with machines and bounteous fuels to burn to power them. We proceeded to amplify every ability and even cheat death with new medical techniques, antibiotics, vaccines, etc. to the point where being “the fittest” is not required at all. Unfortunately, we haven’t really had a chance to catch up…