To some degree. And I agree on most emotions, they exist for a reason and someone who discounts them without reflection is making a mistake. But I think Envy, on reflection, still strikes me as something better for the goals of evolution and in the environment of our ancestors than one that “makes sense” for us and in the modern world.
I think, insofar as Envy drives people to steal, it decreases people’s likelihood to survive and thrive (jail isn’t the optimal place for either of those, and if you’re stealing from Envy, not desperation or something, it probably wasn’t worth the risk). Cheating, another behavior driven by Envy, can lead to suffering violence at the hands of the spurned party (tho if you have “has more sex than otherwise” as a non-trivial term in “thrive” then possibly this one is a wash).
To me, Envy seems to be the drive to defect against a cooperator in some cases, which is, let’s call it “effective” (to differentiate “good/nice”) to take advantage of when you can. But it’s calibrated for a situation where there are tribal levels of coalition with the cooperators, and now there are societal levels of coalition with the cooperators, so this is a much worse value proposition.
It “makes sense” that it evolved the way it did. And of course, if it didn’t, it wouldn’t have evolved that way. But that doesn’t mean it must continue to “make sense” and I’m not sure it does.
To some degree. And I agree on most emotions, they exist for a reason and someone who discounts them without reflection is making a mistake. But I think Envy, on reflection, still strikes me as something better for the goals of evolution and in the environment of our ancestors than one that “makes sense” for us and in the modern world.
I think, insofar as Envy drives people to steal, it decreases people’s likelihood to survive and thrive (jail isn’t the optimal place for either of those, and if you’re stealing from Envy, not desperation or something, it probably wasn’t worth the risk). Cheating, another behavior driven by Envy, can lead to suffering violence at the hands of the spurned party (tho if you have “has more sex than otherwise” as a non-trivial term in “thrive” then possibly this one is a wash).
To me, Envy seems to be the drive to defect against a cooperator in some cases, which is, let’s call it “effective” (to differentiate “good/nice”) to take advantage of when you can. But it’s calibrated for a situation where there are tribal levels of coalition with the cooperators, and now there are societal levels of coalition with the cooperators, so this is a much worse value proposition.
It “makes sense” that it evolved the way it did. And of course, if it didn’t, it wouldn’t have evolved that way. But that doesn’t mean it must continue to “make sense” and I’m not sure it does.