And by “caring for the baby” I mean like all the actions of the parents until the “baby” is like ~25 years old. Those actions usually have a lot of intricate decisions that are aimed at something like “success and happiness in the long run, even if it means some crying right now”. It’s hard to do right, and a lot of parents make mistakes. But in most cases, it seems like the capability failure, not the intentions. And these intentions looks much more interesting to me than “make a baby smile”.
I think humans have a capacity to empathetically care about the well-being of another person, and that capacity might be more or less (or not-at-all) directed towards one’s children, depending on culture, age, circumstance, etc.
Other than culture and non-parenting-specific drives / behaviors, I think infant-care instincts are pretty simple things like “hearing a baby cry is mildly aversive (other things equal, although one can get used to it)” and “full breasts are kinda unpleasant and [successful] breastfeeding is a nice relief” and “it’s pleasant to look at cute happy babies” and “my own baby smells good” etc. I’m not sure why you would expect those to “fail horribly in the modern world”?
Although I agree that some people have a genuine intrinsic prosocial drive, I think there is also an alternative egoistic “solutions”.
If we’re talking about humans, there are both altruistic and self-centered reasons to cooperate with peers, and there are also both altruistic and self-centered reasons to want one’s children to be healthy / successful / high-status (e.g. on the negative side, some cultures make whole families responsible for one person’s bad behavior, debt, blood-debt, etc., and on the positive side, the high status of a kid could reflect back on you, and also some cultures have an expectation that capable children will support their younger siblings when they’re an older kid, and support their elderly relatives as adults, so you selfishly want your kid to be competent). So I don’t immediately see the difference. Either way, you need to do extra tests to suss out whether the behavior is truly altruistic or not—e.g. change the power dynamics somehow in the simulation and see whether people start stabbing each other in the back.
This is especially true if we’re talking about 24-year-old “kids” as you mention above; they are fully capable of tactical cooperation with their parents and vice-versa.
In a simulation, if you want to set up a direct incentive to cooperate with peers, just follow the instructions in evolution of eusociality. But I feel like I’m losing track of what we’re talking about and why.
I think the “How do children learn?” section of this post is relevant. I really think that you are ascribing things to innate human nature that are actually norms of our culture.
I think humans have a capacity to empathetically care about the well-being of another person, and that capacity might be more or less (or not-at-all) directed towards one’s children, depending on culture, age, circumstance, etc.
Other than culture and non-parenting-specific drives / behaviors, I think infant-care instincts are pretty simple things like “hearing a baby cry is mildly aversive (other things equal, although one can get used to it)” and “full breasts are kinda unpleasant and [successful] breastfeeding is a nice relief” and “it’s pleasant to look at cute happy babies” and “my own baby smells good” etc. I’m not sure why you would expect those to “fail horribly in the modern world”?
If we’re talking about humans, there are both altruistic and self-centered reasons to cooperate with peers, and there are also both altruistic and self-centered reasons to want one’s children to be healthy / successful / high-status (e.g. on the negative side, some cultures make whole families responsible for one person’s bad behavior, debt, blood-debt, etc., and on the positive side, the high status of a kid could reflect back on you, and also some cultures have an expectation that capable children will support their younger siblings when they’re an older kid, and support their elderly relatives as adults, so you selfishly want your kid to be competent). So I don’t immediately see the difference. Either way, you need to do extra tests to suss out whether the behavior is truly altruistic or not—e.g. change the power dynamics somehow in the simulation and see whether people start stabbing each other in the back.
This is especially true if we’re talking about 24-year-old “kids” as you mention above; they are fully capable of tactical cooperation with their parents and vice-versa.
In a simulation, if you want to set up a direct incentive to cooperate with peers, just follow the instructions in evolution of eusociality. But I feel like I’m losing track of what we’re talking about and why.