We are very likely to cooperate ... because of our selfishness.

Why are we selfish?
Survival or self-preservation is a hallmark of life. All living things try their best to survive, to live in safety, to bear offsprings before they die. All living things would become extinct if they could not pass on these selfish genes.

Selfishness is about competing for food, for safe shelter, for mating partner, for better opportunity for offsprings, ...
Selfishness is a big reason to out-smart our neighbours and to win rare prizes.

Every one of us is naturally selfish. Only when all life-sustaining needs are satisfied, we can share out excess in our supplies. Because, we all have different kinds and levels of life-sustaining needs at different times and at different places, we may have both deficiency and excess at any time. We can see that abundance in our environment has very strong influences on our selfishness. In plentiful environment, we can keep (hoard) less and give more.

We are very likely to cooperate or join organizations because of our selfishness. We join in for extra supplies that we cannot get individually. Sharing (equally) is also a hallmark in organization. We usually expect 'fair-and-just' or 'equal' distribution or sharing of benefits for our contribution or investment. Joining and staying in an organization can be about balancing actual (now) and expected (future) benefits with a 'tipping point' somewhere. Depending on our estimated level of supply, we switch between selfish and sharing modes. <Note that we may be dealing with multiple supplies at the same time!>

As we learn more and experience more about cooperation in organizations, if certain outcomes prove beneficial over times then we switch less and learn (or adapt) to live in sharing mode more. By the way, adverse outcomes can keep us in selfish mode.

Looking from outside in, we ask questions like: How can we make life-sustaining supplies adequate so we can enhance sharing and cooperating? What are on this supplies list? Should we declare 'human rights' for supplies on the list? How do we supply 'freedom', 'education', 'health', 'safety' and so on. These questions take us from inside out -- from self-interest to public interest.

What a challenge!
If we can stimulate our environment into supplying good clean and fresh food.
If we can declare 'children rights to sufficient care'.
If we can learn to use our selfish genes for our future.

<NB> Giving ('daana' ทาน) has been recognized as an effective mean to increase our virtue and social or religious merit (standing). But, <see in 5. We are Learners in a Web>, "the value of a gift is measured by the receiver's need" (not the price the giver puts on the gift), giving can be an act of the giver's selfishness.

Giving should include interactions (to ensure that it meets more appropriately the receiver's need), which is a process of adapting to a 'common space' between the giver and the receiver. This adaptation can be considered as 're-organization'. There can be many parties in this interactions.

<NB> Selfishness (self-interest, 'ความเห็นแก่ตัว') in 'common' usage, describes a personal attribute with 'more than the call for survival' value. Selfishness could be viewed as a 'random variable' with a range of values. The average selfishness values of communities could then be used to rank 'strength of organization' of communities. We could expect a lower average value for community-selfishness, when more 'knowledge' is widely shared among individuals in a community. In this way, we would say "less selfishness, more organization" or "more sharing, more advanced knowledge-society".