This is actually an amazing idea
Always thought it’s a play on machine learning, but I’m most probably wrong.
Mate… I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if I don’t see the paper for myself, I’m inclined to be critical of your summary of it. I don’t disagree that it is plausible conservatives indeed are more wealthy, but you have too many assumptions in your comment for any proper conclusion to be taken.
And the idea about altruism isn’t really mine, it’s a very very old and still existing idea in philosophy. Of course it has proponents and opponents, but it hasn’t really been rejected to a degree sufficient to dismiss it, it just remains like pretty much all philosophical concepts, debated. So claiming it is false is a bit arrogant, especially without a proper argument. It would be like claiming free will exists or doesn’t exist with confidence (and this analogy is ironic because egoism is a significant part of the free will debate).
And btw, before you think I’m defending conservatives, you should know I’m a scientist, so I am critical of anything and everything until I see the evidence, and even then, I am critical of the way the evidence was gathered and how it was interpreted. I’m not trying to be “pedantic,” I’m trying to be accurate, because a minute twist on the truth makes it false.
Potentially controversial comment:
rich people with no morals live longer, because they’re entirely self interested, and being entirely self interested they can afford healthcare, thus living longer than non-conservatives on average.
From a philosophical point of view, everyone with absolutely no exception is “self interested.” I believe the idea you’re talking about is whether bettering the lives of other has been incorporated in your identity at a young age making your self-interest ultimately beneficial for others. It’s a complex topic, but the idea is that you don’t really truly do anything for others, ever, but if someone convinced you that if you don’t do good by others, then you should be ashamed or that if you do, you’re a better person, then you do good for others for your own sake, to view yourself in a better light.
I’m a bit confused about your comment though. Are you arguing that the study found that rich people skew the data because of their longer life? If so, I find that hard to believe given the proportion of “rich people,” and the consequently negligible ability to statistically skew a population if it were actually randomly sampled.
Not my field, but I don’t think it’s even possible to really pinpoint “the” most recent evolutionary step, not to mention being able to define “step” in an incredibly slow variable with multiple layers of continuity (individual, population, and whole species levels).
But I would say that it is very recent for sure, as lactase persistence is a trait that really only started (above “noise” level stochastic mutations in the population) when we started using dairy some 6000 years ago because of selection pressure.
What field are you in? In the life sciences, there’s normally a fee to publish closed-access and a higher one for open-access. My last paper was open access and costed about 3500, compared to 1500 pay walled.