PC Gamer: Do you still think social games are “evil” then?
Jonathan Blow: Yes. Absolutely. [T]he general definition of evil in the real world, where there isn’t like the villain in the mountain fortress, is selfishness to the detriment of others or to the detriment of the world. And that’s exactly what [most of these games are].
posted by Rory Marinich on Feb 15, 2011 - 133 comments

Hopeless romantic or selfish creep? Andrew Cohen writes an ode to the one who got away on the day she's to be married, and Lizzie Skurnick explains why that's not cool.
posted by ocherdraco on Aug 5, 2010 - 240 comments

Braess' paradox and the price of anarchy [PDF]: "We had three tunnels in the city and one needed to be shut down. Bizarrely, we found that car volumes dropped. ... We discovered it was a case of Braess' paradox, which says that by taking away space in an urban area you can actually increase the flow of traffic, and, by implication, by adding extra capacity to a road network you can reduce overall performance." [more inside]
posted by parudox on Dec 27, 2008 - 15 comments

evolution of cooperation apparently the evolution of cooperative behavior has been something of a rough spot for evolution researchers. Some guys (Mikhail Burtsev & Peter Turchin) developed a computer simulation that helps to explain how the essential selfishness of survival is not mutually exclusive to altruism and cooperation as well as how these behaviors can arise naturally. (further reading from google: ###)
posted by Tryptophan-5ht on May 8, 2006 - 25 comments

The U.S should not help tsunami victims according to those ever-thoughtful fellows at the Ayn Rand Institute. Why not? Because, Objectively speaking, altruism is evil, especially collective altruism.
posted by jdroth on Dec 31, 2004 - 84 comments