As long as we are biological beings dictated by the laws of evolution, this is the only game in town. Adapt or perish.
this is how things work.As much as I would like to deny it, @kyriacos is right. Each and every one of us is just another incident (hopefully not an accident) in the genetical pool. From the first moment we are equipped with egoistic genes, trying to ensure our survival and the species succesful reproduction. In other words, we are programmed to be selfish and egoistic - some more than others, as you can clearly observe around you. But the story doesnt end there, it would be great just to blame everything on our biological urges and simply think that
What defines humans from the rest of the animals are their cognition and their evolved conscience. Its what has enabled us to achieve all these extraordinary goals and dominate the planet. (More information on Sapiens from Yuval Harari) But this is exactly where the irony lies. We are able to do all these amazing things (cooperation, art, societies etc) simply because some of us understand the fundamental factor that leads to progress: resources. And what resources might be? Coal, wood, water, stone, uranium, oil etc. Noticed something common on the above? Yeap, they are all objective realities, connected with the physical world around us.Now lets try to think as an individual with quite effective egoistic genes, allowing him to think smarter than anyone else. From a evolutionery POV he/she/it (yolo) would try to do the least amount of physical work while getting the majority of the produced goods over the average "stupid" worker. But how can we manage to convince all the others to work for us and still get less? How can we make human labour just another resource available? Damn, if only there was a way to somehow invent series of imaginery stories so they could believe in and make them obey, work, bleed and even die for us, while we are thinking of better ways to keep them caged in their so easily manipulated cognition...
Welcome to the real world. Run by a small club, but you are not in. So the real question is: you consciously choose to join or not?
I will try to look for that experiment if you think it is a good example. But also try to think about some points!
-How was it possible that some partially civilized evovled apes are putting RATS into cages just to check their altruism ?.
-In 1974 a really interesting book was published Egoistic Gene by Richard Dawkins. I would advise you read it if you have the time, it explains a lot about altruism and our species.
-I think you missed the point of my comment, which I believe lies in the last lines of it
Have a good day!