One obvious difference seems to be their position on the exploration/exploitation scale, most corporations do not get bored (the rare cases where they do seem to get bored can probably be explained by an individual executive getting bored, or by customers getting bored and the corporation managing to adapt).
Corporations also do not seem to have very much compassion for other corporations, while they do sometimes co-operate I have yet to see an example one corporation giving money to another, without anticipating some sort of gain from this action (any altruism they display towards humans is more likely caused by the individuals running things or done for signalling purposes, if they were really altruistic you would expect it to be towards each-other).
Do they really value independence and individuality? If so then why do they sometimes merge? I suppose you could say that the difference between they and humans is that they can merge while we can’t, but I’m not convinced we would do so even if we could.
There may be superficial similarities between their values and ours, but it seems to me like we’re quite different where it matters most. A hypothetical future which lacks creativity, altruism or individuality can be safely considered to have lost almost all of its potential value.
Altruism can be produced via evolution by kin selection or group selection. I don’t think kin selection can work for corporations, for several reasons, including massive lateral transfer of ideas between corporations (so that helping a kin does not give a great boost to your genes), deliberate acquisition of memes predominating over inheritance, and the fact that corporations can grow instead of reproducing, and so are unlikely to be in a position where they have no growth potential themselves but can help a kin instead.
Can group selection apply to corporations?
What are the right units of selection / inheritance?
Altruism can be produced via evolution by kin selection or group selection. I don’t think kin selection can work for corporations, for several reasons, including massive lateral transfer of ideas between corporations (so that helping a kin does not give a great boost to your genes), deliberate acquisition of memes predominating over inheritance, and the fact that corporations can grow instead of reproducing, and so are unlikely to be in a position where they have no growth potential themselves but can help a kin instead.
You don’t think there’s corporate parental care?!? IMO, corporate parental care is completely obvious. It is a simple instance of cultural kin selection. When a new corporation is spun off from an old one, there are often economic and resource lifelines—akin to the runners strawberry plants use to feed their offspring.
Lateral gene transfer doesn’t much affect this. Growth competes with reproduction in many plants—and the line between the two can get blurred. It doesn’t preclude parental care—as the strawberry runners show.
How similar are their values actually?
One obvious difference seems to be their position on the exploration/exploitation scale, most corporations do not get bored (the rare cases where they do seem to get bored can probably be explained by an individual executive getting bored, or by customers getting bored and the corporation managing to adapt).
Corporations also do not seem to have very much compassion for other corporations, while they do sometimes co-operate I have yet to see an example one corporation giving money to another, without anticipating some sort of gain from this action (any altruism they display towards humans is more likely caused by the individuals running things or done for signalling purposes, if they were really altruistic you would expect it to be towards each-other).
Do they really value independence and individuality? If so then why do they sometimes merge? I suppose you could say that the difference between they and humans is that they can merge while we can’t, but I’m not convinced we would do so even if we could.
There may be superficial similarities between their values and ours, but it seems to me like we’re quite different where it matters most. A hypothetical future which lacks creativity, altruism or individuality can be safely considered to have lost almost all of its potential value.
Altruism and merging: Two very good points!
Altruism can be produced via evolution by kin selection or group selection. I don’t think kin selection can work for corporations, for several reasons, including massive lateral transfer of ideas between corporations (so that helping a kin does not give a great boost to your genes), deliberate acquisition of memes predominating over inheritance, and the fact that corporations can grow instead of reproducing, and so are unlikely to be in a position where they have no growth potential themselves but can help a kin instead.
Can group selection apply to corporations?
What are the right units of selection / inheritance?
You don’t think there’s corporate parental care?!? IMO, corporate parental care is completely obvious. It is a simple instance of cultural kin selection. When a new corporation is spun off from an old one, there are often economic and resource lifelines—akin to the runners strawberry plants use to feed their offspring.
Lateral gene transfer doesn’t much affect this. Growth competes with reproduction in many plants—and the line between the two can get blurred. It doesn’t preclude parental care—as the strawberry runners show.