This principle is fundamental to all animal social structure; there is no reason to believe it's not coded just as deeply into our own DNA.
The difference is that with human society, the big fish control wealth, jobs, information, power, and other things that allow them to gain and maintain this control.
There is no way around this except to install mutually acceptable rules of conduct that protect fish of all sizes from the appetites of bigger fish.
It would be an unhappy end if that were indeed the end.
But it is not the end. Humans do agree on most things most of the time, from the rules of the road (drive on the road, not your neighbor's lawn) to who runs the country (everyone gets one vote).
When the rules fail us, they fail spectacularly, as with the housing market debacle. But most of the time, they hum along, unnoticed, like the surface tension that supports a water spider, or forces you to chase the last of your Cheerios around a nearly empty cereal bowl.[1]
c0
[1]
One of the rules, unfortunately, is that it's okay for some little fish in some ponds to forever remain at the bottom of the food chain. What's the death of a few thousand tadpoles so long as a handful grow up to be frogs?
Nature sometimes survives by virtue of sheer numbers, which means the sacrifice of many for the welfare of a few. Maybe we should call that the Tadpole Principle.
c0
Started: 2012-10-28
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