"... the tendency to acquire resources gets labeled as "competition" when done in the presence of potential competitors, and not when alone, even though it is the same behavior in both situations" 

There is a debate raging right now about whether competition or cooperation has been more instrumental in and is ultimately better for our species survival, past, present and future. 
As I see it, although I'd usually side with those that prefer cooperation as a norm for interaction with others, there seems to be a fundamental flaw in the logic that says it had to (or has to) go one way or the other in order for us to survive. 

The flaw is in forgetting, or totally missing in the first place, two very important pieces to the natural selection puzzle of life's evolutionary process, 
1) survival of the fittest is not in fact a "competitive" lifestyle in and of it self, but simply a matter of a tendency towards self preservation that often gets labeled as competition when done in close proximity to other organisms 
2) that tendency towards self preservation is about living organisms trying to stay alive, not about trying to make others die. If some organisms die in the process of another organism striving for self preservation, that fact is secondary. It wasn't the killing of the other that was the essential component. The essential component for the survival of the survivor was that they get the resources necessary for their survival. It just so happened to be that by eating the other organism to acquire resources, the other organism died, or by killing the other organism, it left enough resources for the other to survive.

Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, only the life forms which have a knack for acquiring resources in the presence of others trying to do the same thing are the ones that are still running in the race. For us modern humans, it may feel better and it may even work out to the advantage of all parties involved to cooperate with others on most occasions. However, those facts say nothing about the fact that even in our cooperation we are still striving to get what we need to survive. 

In our struggle to survive, we do whatever is necessary to do so. If cooperation with others usually results in our survival, then why waste resources on unnecessary competition? 

No organism (until relatively recently in the evolution of life) has ever really set out to gain dominance in the world of natural selection as if they knew about it from that stand point and thought about how many generations down the line it would be until they were the most successful species left in their little niche on the planet. They are simply trying to survive. 

In fact, it's not even that they're thinking of survival as much as it is about the fact they're just acting as their ancestors did. Whatever behavior leads to survival, it is that behavior that gets passed on to the following generations. The ones that behaved in ways that helped them succeed in the search for resources were the ones that survived. The ones that survived were the ones that reproduced. Their offspring then had their genes and thus also had a relatively similar drive to acquire resources. 

If I'm hungry, I'm going to go try to get food. If there are others trying to get the same food as me and there's only enough for one of us, it may end up looking like competition. However, all that's happening is that we are both acting on an evolved trait that came about in living organisms long before humans or even primates of any kind even took their first breath.


Self Preservation in a Distant Relative
If we were to put a number of fish into an aquarium at home and feed them just a bit less than the recommended routine for the number of fish in the tank, they may appear to compete with each other and each would try to get as much food as they could. The strong and fast ones would most likely be the most successful at acquiring resources and would most likely be the ones to survive. Eventually perhaps the numbers might thin out a bit, resulting in less fish in the aquarium. 

Now with an appropriate amount of food each day, there could potentially be enough for everyone and they could all live together in the same space and still survive. To some, this may then look like cooperation, but obviously it is not. They are each still working hard to acquire resources, but it no longer looks like competition simply because there is now enough food for all of them. 

If however, we were to separate one of them out and put it in an aquarium all by it self and change the food routine by continually putting more food into the tank each time it was finished eating, something drastically different would result. Even in the absence of "competitors", that one fish would keep up the apparently "competitive" behavior with regard to food eating and over eat and die. 

So, in a situation where they have free reign, no other fish around to even compete against, why are they still acting as though it is still time for competition? This is because they do not have any built-in mechanism that tells them they've had enough to eat. The only built-in mechanism they have relative to food is the tendency to eat it when it is available. 

The ancestors of these organisms evolved in an environment where food was not as plentiful as it is with humans dumping it in their tank all the time. So the ones that were fastest and most capable of acquiring the food in the presence of others trying to do the same thing when they came upon it were the ones that survived long enough to produce offspring. 

Thus, the offspring had the same tendency to eat food whenever it was around. This happens regardless of potential competitors because it is not about the others, but about the tendency to preserve one self by acquiring resources to keep going. 

This is not to say that the presence of others had nothing to do with the way this particular trait evolved. It did indeed. I just don't think that it was necessarily a direct response to the others though, as if it were the actual presence of the others that spurred on the evolution of this trait. Instead, the presence of others resulted in it being harder to acquire resources simply because they were also acquiring resources in the same place at the same time. All I'm saying is that the bottom line was not about competing, but about acquiring resources; about a natural tendency towards self preservation.

So, the ones that had more speed and other relevant abilities (relative to the available food rather than relative to the others) were the ones that got the food when this situation arose. Of course, since this has most likely almost always been the situation (more organisms than what the available food resource could support), this trait evolved fairly early in the history of life, and is evident almost universally in all of the various forms that life has evolved into here on planet Earth. 


In Gratitude of Selfishness
It's interesting to me that the tendency toward self preservation gets labeled as "competition" only when done in the presence of other "self-preservationists", and not labeled as competition when alone, even though it is the same behavior in both situations. 

Even more odd though is the fact that some lose sight of the fact that the drive to acquire resources is still fundamentally a selfish motivation when it is done in cooperation with others. Yes, even in cooperating with others, we are still first and foremost concerned with our selves. If we weren't, then how could we ever survive? Simply stated, we could not. Of course, I don't mean, me, one person, but we the species.

Not to say that compassion for and cooperation with others are worthless in the evolution of life on Earth. Certainly they have had their places. Not only that, these are things which I personally am very fond of.

However, if I chopped off a finger or a toe or a hand or a foot or an arm or a leg or some other part and gave it to someone else to eat every time I came across someone starving, soon there wouldn't be enough of me left to give to anyone else. With no limbs to get me around from place to place to search for resources, I couldn't possibly be successful enough at surviving to be able to attract a mate and produce viable offspring. The tendency in me to be a doormat and chop off all of my parts for the survival of others would die with me and never get passed on to another generation. 

Would I rather cooperate than compete with my fellow humans? Sure, but don't think I'm going to be so much into cooperation that I'm going to follow the path of the hypothetical situation just mentioned. Don't mistake my refusal to do so as a desire for or tendency towards competition either though. All I would be doing in refusing such sacrifice is to go along with my natural tendency toward self preservation. How could I cooperate with anyone later on if I didn't do what's necessary for my own survival first? 

I just want to make the point that, at the ground floor level, when it all gets boiled down to the most fundamental components, we have selfishness to thank for our very existence. Whatever methods it employs along the way, let us not forget it's true place in the history of life, in our lives. It is the driving force behind every successful victory in competition with others and it is also the driving force behind every successful cooperative endeavor on which humans have ever embarked.

It may not look like it on the surface, and it may not even be something we're considering when we make our plans, but it certainly is there, always influencing our attitudes and our choices in life whether we like it or not, whether we want to acknowledge it as such or not. The sooner we understand and acknowledge the history behind and make peace with our own selfishness and embrace it for what it is and accept the fact that this is just the way we are, the sooner we can stop hating our selves and get down to the business that we all claim to like so much, showing compassion for and cooperating with each other.
 [entry added 2003, edited 20040624] 

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