“I make a point of going to other people’s funerals because otherwise they won’t come to mine.”
Yogi Berra
Mathematical biologist JBS Haldane famously declared that he would lay down his life for two brothers or eight cousins. Craigslist and Flickr are two of my favorite reminders that lots of webfolk imitate Yogi Berra instead of Haldane.
I’ve been reading a fascinating article in Nature*, “Evolution of indirect reciprocity.” It gives mathematical models where reputation systems provide a very good substitute for genetic kinship. That is, it benefits me to behave altruistically toward someone who’s adding value to the commons, even if I don’t get my own direct payback from that specific person.
The article is by Martin Nowak, a friend from our Princeton days and Karl Sigmund, whose many benefits to our common commons include feeding 3 year-old Sergei Brin his first guglhupf.
* (Nature 437 , 1291-1298 (27 October 2005)