Why do people do this?

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That's why I said "rather modern". I thought of family in an anthropological sense.

"Nuclear family" as opposed to tribal structures. Because communities seemed to be more... humane in the sense that people helped each other more than they do these days.

Now its that your opinion?
Do you have any evidence to back up your claim that communities are more humane now that in the past?

So, like, you do know there are more slaves now than at any other time in history, right?

Assistance for the poor and needy has been around before the welfare state. E.G. The Dole ancient Rome's grain supply, almsgiving and charity. Prejudice as always been around & it is still here in our times. Also ethnic enclaves/ghettoes are still around today.

That done not proof the claim to be valid to be perfectly honest, it only proofs that we have a few things in common with our past.

Favoring your own family is favoring your own genes. It is a strategy to make your genes prosper. Which means they get passed to the next generation. And that is all that nature cares about.

Moral issues have nothing to with reproductive success, which is all that matters.

ruveyn

It's the monkeysphere. We are only able to support a limited number of relationships at once - for humans, about 150 people are all we can think of as real people. Beyond that, they're just background. If you doubt that, think about where your rubbish goes on bin day, or the people who serve the sandwiches at the deli, or the bus driver. These are real people with real lives, but we often don't think of them. Or even remember them.

There's nothing inherently *bad* about this - if we considered every person as a person, we'd never get anything done! - but it's the main reason behind many of society's ills. We tend to ignore the needy, because we don't interact with them. They fade into the background. Racial stereotypes are a convenient shorthand - it's much easier to think of an entire country as being filled with lots of just one person. Other people are bad drivers when they cut you up, but you and your friends and family are not bad drivers; you make the odd mistake, perhaps, but that's because you're human beings. Which implies that other drivers are not... It explains politics (you and all your friends are democrats, because you're sensible, intelligent people, but republicans are clearly clueless - except, they think the same about you) and religion (your fellow Christians are all individuals, but muslims are all the same and jews are all the same and scientologists are all the same and so on...) and sports (your team's supporters are passionate, the other guys are hooligans).

We view the people close to us as more important because they are - to us. I've only got enough relationship connections to interact with my family, friends, work colleagues and more frequent service agents (like the ladies at the local shop). I can't worry about some bloke I've never met in Uganda. I don't have the bandwidth.

What's really weird is how we can think of celebrities as real people before the people we actually interact with - and even fictional characters.

Family is quite important to me. My children are to be protected and nurtured. Others' children are to be protected and nurtured if those naturally charged with such a task aren't capable/refuse to.

We all have our responsibilities, and close knit families are better able to protect and nurture the offspring.

I don't remember ever seeing anyone and determine they have similar genes to mine. My uncle was adopted, yet he is in the family -- in my family, not in that of his biological mother.

I think it is just a social construct built around living along each other. + what Fnord said, because it is entirely true.


The original "ghetto" was in Venice, and Venice was actually one the most open place for Jews, because everyone was too busy about making money to care about being intolerant. They just liked creating "colonies" for foreigners, most of which only lived temporarily in Venice, in order to better control them and avoid their being too involved in commerce. If you are talking about the recent German incident, it was rather exceptional, and it is, for all practical purposes, our time.

I think it never gets really better, because when some aspect improves, we come to take it for granted. We are happy when we can achieve our expectation, unhappy when we don't, but those expectations vary a lot.

My family is very very important to me I care for them more then I about the friends I have its how we all are in my family which is just one big pot of diffrent cultures all in one

My family is very very important to me I care for them more then I about the friends I have its how we all are in my family which is just one big pot of diffrent cultures all in one

I actually think that's the main cause of human violence. The disparity between how much we care about our relatives, and by extension our countryfolk, and how little we care about foreigners and strangers naturally causes exploitation of outsiders to occur for the benefit of loved ones. Not to mention, the origin of most revenge.

Personally, I love my family, but I could potentially love ANYONE as much as I love my blood relationships if I got to know them long enough, and like them well enough. In fact I have several friends that I consider family.

The main reason I love my family is because they love me and socially, blood is a contract that keeps people together. Plus they're really nice people generally.