Reply #14: You have to do what 'feels' right [View All]

[Xipe Totec]

Because what is rational is not always right, and what is right is not always rational. We do it because, at a fundamental level, that is how we have been programmed to behave by our genes.

It's that funny thing some call a conscience, moral compass, or sense of kinship that humans have evolved as a survival strategy. We are social creatures by nature. We instinctively seek each other for comfort, support, and mutual assistance. Fundamentally, the paradox emerges from living in a social group that is way too large for the individual to handle. The strategy breaks down because there is no longer any connection between a direct action and its beneficiary.

Acts that made sense for a villager in a community of a few hundred make absolutely no sense in a metropolitan setting composed of hundreds of thousands of individuals.