The Sports Car Analogy

Why do not we all, eventually, develop into the best possible human being in the environment we are living in? Why do not we all, naturally, learn to control our angers and fears, and why do not we all have, in our genes, a stronger desire to help everyone around us if the are in need of help. This would on a local scale stop you from arguing with your neighbor, and on the global scale it would prevent wars.

Think about designing a Sports Car. You have already made it as effective as you can. Engine, brakes, wheels... everything is as good as you possibly can get it. The limit is reached because everything is getting too complex for you to design. Everything from the material in the tires to the computerized injection system in the engine. But there is one way of making the Sports Car even better: to let it develop itself after it has been produced.

The huge downside of this is that, in most cases, it will develop into something worse. Or it might develop to become very unbalanced. The Sports Car might for example develop a super strong engine at the same time as the brakes get worse, or the tires! (Just because it wants to.) But in the rare cases where the development is nicely balanced you will get a Sports Car to win every race with.

In nature you can see different types of animals with different degrees of freedom in terms of development after birth. It is difficult to change anything in an Ants behavior. A Dog can learn a lot, and Humans even more. The more freedom you give the Sports Car to develop itself after it has left the factory the greater it can be. But the chances are smaller that it ever will be nearly as great as it can become. It might just as well end up worse than the original. And then the risk of car accidents become much higher.