Cooperation

"Cooperation is an evolutionary riddle, as it defies the basic principles of natural selection. If during the course of evolution only the fittest survive, why should one sacrifice individual fitness for the benefit of unrelated others? Widespread cooperation in nature is indeed one of the most important challenge to Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. Understanding the evolution of cooperation means understanding also the main evolutionary transitions that led from single-cell organisms to complex animal and human societies, and it is therefore little surprising that the subject consistently attracts attention across large contingents of social and natural sciences."

"I watched on TV when America sent men to the moon, and there were a lot of people whose names werent given who helped make it possible. You dont have the names of those who run the computers and other things. But they worked together and this is what you have to have ... Chinese, American, Jewish, black and white, people working side by side. [...] We must all live together and work together no matter what race or nationality. If you have an opportunity to accomplish something that will make things better for someone coming behind you, and you dont do that, you are wasting your time on this earth."

"Anarchism is not compelled to outline a complete organization of a free society. To do so with any assumption of authority would be to place another barrier in the way of coming generations. The best thought of today may become the useless vagary of tomorrow, and to crystallize it into a creed is to make it unwieldy. We judge from experience that man is a gregarious animal, and instinctively affiliates with his kind co-operates, unites in groups, works to better advantage, combined with his fellow men than when alone. This would point to the formation of co-operative communities, of which our present trades-unions are embryonic patterns."

"Once more, I ask all participants to think what great cooperation means. I quote an example given by the Teacher: Forces which act against each other are mutually destroyed. Forces which act along parallel lines in the same direction manifest the sum of these energies, and forces which act separately are weakened, according to the angle of their divergency.... This fundamental law of physics is also a fundamental law of cooperation. Therefore, straighten out your divergencies so that your forces move in the same direction. Consider the consequences of divergencies. In true cooperation, no one is belittled, and he can help the better who knows and sees more. The more ignorant a person or a nation is, the less cooperation is in evidence."