Howard Rheingold: Beyond the Mustache

"Here's the old story: biology is war, in which only the fiercest survive. Businesses and nations succeed ONLY by defeating, destroying, and dominating competition."

Howard Rheingold's words paint a depressing summary of human society, yet this is the mentality and belief taken by many. However, Rheingold continues on to suggest a brighter world: one where human collaboration and collective action are responsible for most of our successes. And, upon second glance, this is the true reality.

Throughout human history, human evolution and social development have resulted from collaboration. Hunting large animals, agriculture, and the rise of empires and civilization are all direct results from collective action. Human collaboration eventually lead to language, and then the spread of literacy, and along with it revolutions in knowledge, technology, religion, and politics--- all leading up to create the world we live in today.



In fact, even our independence-heavy economic system of capitalism is enabled only through cooperative arrangements and the development of relatively young and new ideas. This delicate balance is clearly shown through our need for economic regulation to prevent monopolies and the triumph of greed: opposites of the human collaboration Rheingold advocates, and able to destroy our American way of life.

It is that mentality, to greedily win all or nothing, that is our downfall, says Rheingold. He points to the Prisoner's Dilemma, and the Tragedy of the Commons, two well-known economic models, as proof: in both these theories, the choosing of the self over the public good is wholly responsible for harsh and easily avoidable consequences.



However, Rheingold points to small but inspiring facets of wildly successful collaborations in our society. He talks about Wikipedia, Folding@home, Bittorrent, and even the collaborations between many highly competitive and "cutting-edge" companies. These bursts of cooperation between people have resulted in medical, technological, and literary advancements, and the betterment of humankind as a whole. One can only hopefully expect that this trend will continue, for the good of everyone.