Are humans innately good or evil?

[Bloodshadow]

Last, and off topic, if you truly like physics, don't let anyone talk you out of it.  It's an amazing subject that I think has more potential than almost any other.  If you don't mind me asking, why don't your parents want you going into it?

It is not easy to pursue a career in physics. It is not easy to get a job, not easy to earn money, and if I fail to get funds for my research then I'll have nothing. My parents are simply realists, you might say. However, if everyone shared their attitude, then the career of physics should have deteriorated to nothing by now; I'm wondering how other people's parents responded to their children's interest in physics, but I have yet to find someone I know that wanted to do a physics major in university.

Of course, I will not allow anyone to dissuade me from physics. Existence itself has no meaning, so I decided to pursue the next best thing and find the nature of the universe. I've given up on humanity and the world, but I haven't given up on myself; if I lose interest in physics sometime in the future, that'll probably be when I commit suicide.

If humans are biologically limited, then are they doomed to destroy each other? I suspect that a nuclear war will break out, when countries are fighting over the last bits of natural resources such as fresh water.

[OldTrees]

Necessity is the mother of invention and Science Fiction has brought the warnings of necessity early.
I do not think we will get even close to nuclear war over resources until we have already spread out to other planets.

Once we have done that the answer to running out of resources would be preemptive journeys to find more before the stores you have run out.

[PhuzzY LogiK]

If humans are biologically limited, then are they doomed to destroy each other? I suspect that a nuclear war will break out, when countries are fighting over the last bits of natural resources such as fresh water.

I think it's a possibility that humans may cause a world ending scenario.  It's been a possibility from the start of the nuclear age.  But we are not "doomed" to it like a foregone conclusion.  We will have to implement new technologies, radically alter how we view the earth, and completely overhaul our political systems, but in the immortal words of Monty Python: "...I'm not dead yet!"

Necessity is the mother of invention and Science Fiction has brought the warnings of necessity early.
I do not think we will get even close to nuclear war over resources until we have already spread out to other planets.

Once we have done that the answer to running out of resources would be preemptive journeys to find more before the stores you have run out.

Unfortunately, I think your optimism is a bit misplaced.  Current UN predictions are that 2/3rds of the world population will have insufficient fresh water within 15-20 years.

We just discovered the first  "earth like" planet we know of in the universe a few weeks ago (and we don't even know if we could survive there for sure, we just know it sits in the same zone as earth relative to its star).  It is 20 lightyears away.  We can't even figure out how to safely and reliably get manned missions to Mars, which is comparatively spitting distance away (a very tiny fraction of a lightyear).  Earth is our sole home for a long time to come.

[Zeru]

It is not easy to pursue a career in physics. It is not easy to get a job, not easy to earn money, and if I fail to get funds for my research then I'll have nothing.

I'm not sure how does the economy in your part of the world look like, but EU pays huge scholarships to students, who study physics. If you get those, you can actually rent a flat with warm water, light, food and internet. Furthermore, some students actually receive extra scholarship from corporations in exchange for a promise that they will work to them. If you get both, you can actually earn more money than your parents by doing nothing else than studying. Europe lacks engineers. And the currently working ones have nice salaries. That is something to think about.

[QuantumT]

Last, and off topic, if you truly like physics, don't let anyone talk you out of it.  It's an amazing subject that I think has more potential than almost any other.  If you don't mind me asking, why don't your parents want you going into it?

It is not easy to pursue a career in physics. It is not easy to get a job, not easy to earn money, and if I fail to get funds for my research then I'll have nothing. My parents are simply realists, you might say. However, if everyone shared their attitude, then the career of physics should have deteriorated to nothing by now; I'm wondering how other people's parents responded to their children's interest in physics, but I have yet to find someone I know that wanted to do a physics major in university.



If humans are biologically limited, then are they doomed to destroy each other? I suspect that a nuclear war will break out, when countries are fighting over the last bits of natural resources such as fresh water.

I'm a physics graduate student. ^_^

My parents basically have Confucius's view on careers:

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
-Confucius

It probably helps that I'm not a liberal arts major, so I'm still employable.

snip

I might be mistaken, but I think he's talking more about straight physics, as opposed to engineering.

OT, I don't think humans are necessarily selfish by nature. There are certain things that are considered good that come about logically in evolution.

For example, murder being unacceptable is beneficial to the survival of our species as a whole. If everyone murdered whenever it would be of benefit to themselves, our species wouldn't survive very long. You can come up with other reasons for why things like theft and lying are bad as well.

One way to look at it though is as a game theory problem, specifically the prisoner's dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma).

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated the prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies for the prosecution against the other (defects) and the other remains silent (cooperates), the defector goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

This can be summarized with the following choice table:

	Prisoner B Stays Silent	Prisoner B Betrays
Prisoner A Stays Silent	Each serves 6 months	Prisoner A: 10 years Prisoner B: goes free
Prisoner A Betrays	Prisoner A: goes free Prisoner B: 10 years	Each serves 5 years

In this 'game' let's say there are only 2 different choices for strategy (this is actually not a unreasonable limitation to make), and they are:

1) Always betray- (ie be selfish) In this strategy you always choose to betray, in order to receive the minimum possible sentence (0).

2) Tit-for-Tat- An agent using this strategy will initially cooperate, then respond in kind to an opponent's previous action. If the opponent previously was cooperative, the agent is cooperative. If not, the agent is not. Additionally, some small percent (like 5) of the time, you will 'forgive' your  opponent (choose cooperate even if they chose betray previously, which prevents loops).

Now let's say that we have a population composed entirely of one or the other. If the whole population is filled with 1), any departure from this strategy leads to me losing with respect to my peers (due to the initial choice of cooperation). On the other hand, if the population is filled with 2), then any departure from that strategy leads to a loss.

One could argue that since a population filled with 2) leads to a better average score than 1), that any species that survives will generally adopt this strategy, as the species does better as a whole.

[Zeru]

Actually, there was a contest to make the best strategy to this game. Tit-for-tat was the winner.

I might be mistaken, but I think he's talking more about straight physics, as opposed to engineering.

1) Math has pretty neat scholarship as well despite it being a lot less useful in practice than physics (even though there would be no physics without the former)
2) You can start of as an engineer, get a god job and continue studying after you get rich enough.

[OldTrees]

Tit for tat is only a superior strategy if there is at least a minimum minority that uses it.

Given Reward Matrix Below [1st,2nd]

		2nd
		Betray	Don't Betray
1st	Betray	C,C	A,D
	Don't Betray	D,A	B,B

Where A is the most preferable outcome and D is the least.

P is the percentage of the population that always betrays and (1-P) is the tit for tat strategists

After X games with Y people each (representative of the population)

Always Betray gained CXP from each of those who also always betray and A+C(X-1)(1-P) from each tit for tater
Total: Y(CX+(A-C)(1-P))

Tit for taters gain D+C(X-1)P from each always betrayer and BX(1-P) from each tit for tater.
Total Y(CXP+BX(1-P)+(D-C)P)

Always betray	Tit for tat
Y(CX+(A-C)(1-P))	Y(CXP+BX(1-P)+(D-C)P)
CX+(A-C)(1-P)	CXP+BX(1-P)+(D-C)P
CX(1-P)+(A-C)(1-P)	BX(1-P)+(D-C)P
(A-C)(1-P)	(B-C)X(1-P)+(D-C)P
0	(B-C)X(1-P)+(D-C)P-(A-C)(1-P)

So when (B-C)X(1-P)+(D-C)P-(A-C)(1-P)=0 both strategies are equal. If it is >0 then tit for tat is superior. If it is <0 then always betray is superior

For (1-P)=0 (no other tit for taters exist)
(B-C)X(1-P)+(D-C)P-(A-C)(1-P)=(D-C)<0
So when there is only 1 tit for tater they should adopt a always betray strategy until more tit for taters arise out of irrationality.

For P=0 (no other always betrays exist)
(B-C)X(1-P)+(D-C)P-(A-C)(1-P)=(B-C)X-(A-C)
Now (B-C)X-(A-C) can be either positive, negative or even zero
A-C=G
B-C=H
If G>HX then there is no tit for tat equilibrium.
If G<=HX then there is a tit for tat equilibrium.