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Originally wrote this, I believe, back in 2015.
If I had to sit down and make a list of the biggest changes between age 25 and age 34, I think I’d only be 3–4 items into the list before I arrived at “Meeting more selfish people, daily.” Now, there are a lot of arguments you can make before we even talk about being selfish — for example, the nine years between me turning 25 and me turning 34 also had the advent of social media and more digital communications. You can make an argument — a legitimate argument — that those have helped people become more selfish. (I mean, fuck, isn’t the point honestly to talk about yourself?) You could also argue, as you could with anyone, that I’m a pretty unique person and maybe, because of my own issues, I tend to view others as selfish. That’s also entirely possible/plausible. But recently I’ve been thinking about it more. Here’s what I found out.
I guess, on surface, that the idea of being selfish as an evolutionary advantage makes sense. After all, aren’t we hard-wired to protect ourselves and our interests? And essentially, wouldn’t selfishness be an off-shoot of that? That was argued in a 2012 study.
Later studies have contradicted that notion, essentially saying, “If we were completely selfish beings — humans, that is — we never would have survived this far.” Rather than selfishness, that study…
