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This is my DnD map that I drew and this is what all of my out of class writing assignments were on. This map was original and so were all my ideas for the world. I did do it in the Forgotten realms world. Hopefully I will find another DnD group to play with as I had a lot of fun making a new world. 

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Out of class writing  other islands

The other islands in The Realm of Shaoghal:

The other islands in this realm each have their own individuality about them. To the inhabitants to the island of Shaoghal much is unknown about them due to the fact that the oceans are so dangerous to travel. There are rumours of these islands housing races that have never been seen before on the main island of Shaoghal.

Un-named island:

This island is unnamed and as far as anyone knows uninhabited. No one knows however as no one has been able to make it this island before. The waters surrounding this island are even more dangerous than the rest of the oceans in this realm. Any ship that has tried to sail to this island has been sent to its grave at the bottom of the ocean. The reason the waters around this island are so dangerous is due to the fact that there are always lightening storms raging off the coast as well as strong currents sending boats that haven’t gotten struck crashing into the rocks. 

The Islands of Sgoltdh:

These two islands are interesting as they used to be one. A large 

Volcanic eruption split the island in two. The right one and the left one. The right island is home to a large forest that has many different animal wildlife located on it. The left island is a multan fiery mess, there is no vegetation located on this island. These Islands are home to the Genasi elemental races. These races have never been off of these islands are unknown to the main island. 

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Out of class writing  Geographical features

Desert of Fasacl: 

The desert of Fasacl is the only true desert on the island of Shaoghal. It is blocked by mountains to the north, south and west causing very little moister to the air. Because of that, this land is extremely dry. The winds are still very strong in this region, however. Because of the dryness and high winds, it has caused this land to be prominently sand. The sand stretches on as far as the eye can see when you first enter the desert. There is very little vegetation located in this region and the oasis that is found is extremely limited and constantly drying up. Many people who hope to reach the city of Beinn by land try crossing this desert, not many of the people who try to reach it make it out. There are stranger creatures who inhabit this barren landscape making the crossing of the desert even harder. A few tribes of desert dwellers do exist in this land however, all of them being human tribes. Not much is known of the tribes who live in this desert as they are reclusive in nature and prefer to not interact with any outsider. They never venture out of the desert to greener pastors for some unknown reason. If you are a traveller in the desert you will catch the occasional glimpse of these tribesmen as they always watch the travellers going through. They never help the travellers, they just wait for the desert to take its toll on them. They never attack any traveller either, after all why waste the energy when chances are they will die anyway. They watch all who travel through to scavenge their belongings off of their sun-baked corpses. Those who have tried to interact with these desert humans have found that they speak a very unique language not understood by any outsider. 

Bay of Bagh 

The Bay of Bagh is located to the east of the island. It is the calmest water is all of the realm of Shaoghal. The occasional storm hardly ever causes ships to crash. The water in this bay is a deep ocean blue colour as the bay is extraordinarily deep. Due to the waters being so calm there are often fishing boats out on the water for the city of Airgead. This bay is also one of the biggest reasons the city of Airgead is as rich as it is. The bay is the only safe link to get to the city of Beinn. There is a river that comes off the peninsula of Leth-Eilean that ships can follow all the way up to the city of Beinn. It is also Beinn’s only outlet to any other world besides their own secluded world on the peninsula. Sailors who travel these waters will be able to catch glimpses of large ocean creatures who will sometimes come up and break the surface. All of the creatures located in the bay are generally passive creatures, except for predators like sharks the waters would be completely safe. Or so people think, after all no one knows what is at the bottom of this extremely deep ocean. 

Dona Marsh:

Dona marsh is located on the southern tip of the island. It is like a large boil sore coming off of the island as only the stubborn, foolish, or the brave venture to this geographical feature. There are no official towns or cities in the marsh anymore. Legend says that there used to be multiple great cities located on this land surrounded by very fertile soil and these cities prospered. The people in the cities were said to be some of the most beautiful people in all the land. As the legend goes one of the cities desired more wealth and power so it built up its military and attacked the other cities located in the land. All of the cities ended up fighting each other causing them to be destroyed. It is not known why the land turned into a large marsh but all that remains there now is a brackish water marsh filled with old ruins and long decayed bodies. The reason travellers do not venture into this marsh is there are still some inhabitants located in it. There are multiple aquatic races that claim their home in this marsh,  like lizardfolk, and they are not always nice to the other land fairing races. Besides the hostile natives located in this marsh, the ruins are filled with the undead. Anyone who dies in the marsh has their body reanimate and mindlessly shuffle along the area they died. Their own desire is to attack any creature that is living them come across. Perhaps the most dangerous of all are the trolls located in this marsh. The marsh is filled with trolls that can never be exterminated. If you cut one troll down two more rises to takes its place. If someone can avoid the hostile natives, the trolls, and the undead they still have to make it past the wildlife. The wildlife located in this swamp consists of many different types of poisonous animals where even one bite can leave someone paralyzed for life or result in their instant death. Many adventurous people have tried to go into the marsh to try and plunder all the riches from those old wealthy cities, only to end up meeting death instead due to all of the dangerous elements located inside the Dona Marsh. 

The Great Plains of Mor Feur:

The great plains of Mor Feur are the largest distinctive geographical feature located on the island of Akemund. It is located in the center of the north half of the island. The plains consist of large grasslands stretching as far as the eye can see, on rare occasions, there will be some sturdy trees that have stood the test of time and would not give tot the plains roaring wind. These plains are home to many small villages that make their living off of farming or live stalk. These villages are peaceful housing only a few families who decided to live with each other for the company. However, not all is good on these plains. These plains are also home to various barbarian tribes. The last true barbarian tribes in all of the realm are located here. They refuse to interact with anyone from any civilization deeming them as too weak. The barbarians view themselves as the strongest as they live off of the land and survive the harsh elements. There are multiple tribes of barbarians all with their own leaders. There is no one ruler for the tribes, there are legends however of certain times when all the tribes gathered together to fight a common enemy. Depending on the legend the common enemy changes, it goes all the way to a black dragon to a horde of orcs and ogres. Just because the tribes are not unified does not make them hostile towards each other. Often times tribal chieftains will marry their daughters to other tribal chiefs to help with relations. Each tribe has its own unique culture and worships their own animal guide. The barbarians are fierce warriors who oftentimes plunder the small farming villages, thinking that if they are too weak to defend themselves then they do not deserve their belongings. Any traveller who ventures into these plain better come prepared to either prove their worth to the barbarians or they will meet fierce resistance.  

The mountain ranges: 

Each mountain range is different from the others. There are three main mountain ranges located on the island of Akemund. There is the Eastern mountain range that the city of Reidh is located on, the Blocking mountain range that blocks the peninsula of Leth-Eilean off from the mainland, and then there is the Leth mountain ranges located on the peninsula. The eastern mountain range is the smallest out of all the ranges, some say it is also the oldest and that is why the mountains are the smallest. It does not have as many precious metals as the other mountain ranges but it does have something that makes it special. It is the only place in the world where one can locate the exploding powder the demolitions guild uses. It also has a large number of special gems and crystals the alchemy guild loves to use in their experiments. The Blocking mountains are the largest mountains in the realm. They have formed a natural barrier separating the peninsula from the rest of the island. These mountains are the most treacherous to try and cross or explore as there are sudden drop-offs, slippery rocks and other dangerous features. No one has climbed to the tips of these mountains but it is known that there are races that live on top of them. Goliaths and Aarakocra are the two most prominent races that live in these mountains. With how dangerous these mountains are the folklore states that this mountain range is where all the evil monsters that populate the realm originated, like goblins, kobolds, orcs, and hobgoblins. The finale mountain range, the Leth mountains, is located on the peninsula of Leth-Eilean. This mountain range is home to the majority of the dwarves in the realm. The biggest dwarven city Beinn is located in these mountains. These mountains have an extraordinarily high amount of precious metals in them which has allowed the dwarves to mine them and form the finest weapons and armour in the realm. 

The forest: 

The forests are unnamed on the island as the whole island has trees covering it. The two forest marks on this island are just to show where the densest forest is. However, it is said that some dark witches live in the southern one. In both forests and other heavily wooden areas live tribes of Firbolgs. They tend to themselves not often venturing out of their forests. 

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Out of class writing  Cities of the island Akemund

City of Airgead:

The city of Airgead is by far the most wealthy city in the realm. The reason for that is it is located right at the mouth of the Bay of Bagh. The bay of Bagh is so important because one of the only ways to get to the end of the peninsula of Leth-Eilean is by ship. The river that flows is deep enough for a ship to travel through. It is one of the only ways to trade with the dwarven city of Beinn. The city of Airgead is also located on rivers that go across the whole island leading to the option of many travelers and traders to get there by ship. It is the most connected city out of every other city on the island. Due to its wealth, it is also one of the largest cities in this realm. With how large this city is, it is not run by a single ruler. Instead, this city’s government is a plutocracy. It is run by the most wealthy individuals and families. The political landscape between these families is a cutthroat business with each family trying to one-up the others and gain more influence. Not everything in this city is grand, however, because Airgead is known for its wealth it attracts many people who go there with the intention of seeking great wealth. Unfortunately, very few people make it rich but most people can’t leave after spending all of their money to get there. It may be the richest city with the largest amount of money flowing through it, but it also has the largest lower town and slums out of the realm. Due to this, the city is a hotbed for criminal syndicates trying to get their own profit but running a black market or stealing shipments bound for the city and selling them as their own. All kinds of seedy guilds have headquarters here such as the thieves guild, or the insidious murtair guild, known for being one of the most organized assassin guilds. With the city having such a large criminal enterprise and being located on the coast many pirates sail use this city as one of the few places they will stop on land for. The city is split up into different sections mostly by levels of wealth. The top one is the golden level, the only people who live in that level full time are the families of the rulers. They do allow shops and restaurants to set up here but the owners are not allowed to have a permanent residence there. Some rulers have spent their whole life in this section of the city never leaving the safety of the gold plated guards patrolling there. After that level is the silver level. This level is mainly populated by the cities wealthy. The most successful merchants live here and people who are substantially rich but not related to the rulers. Many of the families who live here are constantly trying to broker a deal with a ruling family to marry into it to be able to move into the golden level. Beneath that is the bronze level. This is the level that travelers first go into when entering the city. It has the docks and warehouses in this section. This is where the common man would live. The bronze level is by far the largest section of the city with the most amount of people living here. Beneath that is the lower city. The lower city is where the poor live, they are perhaps travelers who tried to make it rich but ended up losing their money. The last level, the slums, is pretended not to exist if it did it would be a major black eye to the reputation of this city. This is the level where the criminals live in as the city guard never ventures down this far. It is truly a lawless section of the city. 

This city is home to many races with little discrimination, except of course to the more outlandish ones. The ruling families are a mix between humans and elves mainly but there are some dwarven families. Perhaps the weirdest ruling family is there is one family that is only gnomes, not allowing any outside marrying into the family this family practices interfamily marriage to try and keep their family “pure”. Due to recent birth defects and mental issues arising in the family, there are rumors this once-proud family will be replaced by an up and coming silver-level family. In order for the city to be able to sustain itself, there are many farming villages and towns that are located on the outskirts of the city. The sole purpose of these towns is to grow food to feed the large population of the city. 

City of Beinn:

The city of Beinn is one of the hardest cities to reach. It is not unheard of travelers reaching this city but due to its location, it extremely hard to get to. Surrounded by mountains this city is built in the side of the mountain range. With many of its houses and hotels being carved straight out of the stone. It should come as no surprise but this city is prominently populated by mountain dwarves. The dwarves in this area are a private lot. Due to the low amount of outsiders who enter the city is leaves many of the dwarven citizens uneasy to trust anyone who is not a dwarf. There are other races who live in this city but they are located in certain sections. There is one section that is only for humans and elves with another where only gnomes and halflings live. These areas are not any poorer than other parts of the cities and they are not forced to live there, it is just that the inhabitants found it was safer to live in their own area to avoid being targeted by extremist groups of dwarves. 

While this city may be secluded due to geographical reasons it does have an economy that is supported by the exportation of its resources. This city is located in the mountains so the majority of its inhabitants are in the profession of mining. The metals that are mined are made into some of the finest dwarven crafted weapons and armor. There are ships that travel down the river to a small coastal town on the coast of the island. The small coastal town is only there to process shipments, both those coming in from other cities (mainly the city Airgead) and the exports of their metals. They export crafted items, but also raw metals and expertly cut gems. 

This city is run by a royal dwarven family. This royal family operates under the guide that they are the servant to the city and the people who live in it not just the rulers. The family views it as a sacred obligation to dedicate their lives to helping the city. The succession of the rule is not gender-specific. The rule goes down to the oldest child born regardless of gender. The oldest is allowed to pass the rule down to the next oldest only with permission of the next in line. As the legend goes the royal family traces their lineage all the way back to the first dwarven family to discover the precious metals in the mountains and founded the foundations for the city. 

City of Adnar:

Not much is known of the city of Adnar. It is a city located in the furthest most northern part of the mainland to the island of Akemund. The city is located next to the lake Falmh and a river going to the coast so it is able to be completely self-sufficient with the fertile grounds located around the city. The city has a strict policy on not allowing outsiders inside the city limits. Outsiders are stopped outside the walls and must perform business with special third party operators. This city likes its seclusion from the rest of the world. There are dark rumors that circulate this city, rumors of people disappearing when they go to see the city. Traders camping outside the city have mentioned hearing howls and growls coming from inside the city on certain nights of the year. Most travelers try to avoid this city is possible as there is not much for a traveler up here except for the farms located around the city. No one knows who truly is in charge of this city. The only thing that is known is that in the castle located in the center of the city messengers will come out with orders from an unknown individual. Those who enter the castle without an invitation never come back out. There have been cases of individuals who wanted to take control for themselves, thinking it easy after all the current ruler is an unknown force. All of those who publically tried to take any amount of political control were found slaughtered with their bodes stabbed by spikes and propped up outside the dark castle as a warning. The unknown ruler sees all that happens within their city. 

Unknown to the majority of the inhabitants of the realm of Shaoghal, but this city is inhabited by shifters and other creatures of the night such as vampires and feral tieflings. This city is a safe haven for those who would normally be shunned by their gifts. The shifters in the city are of all kinds; werewolves, werebears, werecats, and being located next to the lake even some weresharks. The reason they do not allow outsiders within the walls is that this is a closely guarded secret, not even known by the farmers located outside the city. This city has agents called finders that travel the world under the disguise of being simple travels. Their true purpose is to find others in the realm who are affected by any type of lycanthropy or vampirism and force them to come to the city. Most people the finders find gladly travel back to the city, to live a life with put the fear of getting hunted. There are those who choose not to go to the city, preferring to instead be alone and prey on some small villages and enjoy their own personal freedom. The finders have a strict code of if the person they find does not come to the city willingly they must terminate the one they found. The reason for this is for control, making sure no guilds of lycanthrope or vampire hunters form. The city is incredibly strict as once you agree to move in you are not allowed to leave. This causes the people who do manage to escape to live in the shadows and not draw attention to themselves. The finders always find those who escape, however. No one knows what type of magic is used only that if you have escaped from the city you will always be found even if one travels to the furthest point from the city. No one escapes the gaze of the finders. 

City of Lasg:

The city of Lasg is located in the center of the island of Akemund and right next to Caren Lake. This city is not a rich city, but neither is it poor. Its main purpose is that it is a fishing city. The entire culture of this city revolves around the lake. The lake is considered sacred to the inhabitants of the city as it is what provides life to it. Caren Lake is a very deep lake housing a large number of different types of fish and life. The main population of the city of Lasg is mainly humans but has no problem of those of other races living in the city.  Those of any race can live in the city, as long as they can provide and respect the lake all are welcome. The ruler of this city is an elected mayor. Every five years there is an election held to decide who should be the next mayor. There are no term limits allowing some popular mayors in history to be in charge for decades at a time. The fish that is caught here is the primary source of food for this city. They do receive some crops from trading with farms but when travelers enter this city they are welcomed by the overwhelming smell of fish and at every corner, there are street vendors selling all types of differently prepared dishes. It should not come as a surprise but the majority of inhabitants are fishermen and those who are not are normally deck hands or work at the docks.  The reason the city of Lasg has gotten so big and prospered is due to the fact that they export a large amount of fish to the city of Airgead. With Airgead having such a large population they are always trying to import more food to their city. The biggest provider for their food is the city of Lasg. Because they have been trading with the city of Airgead they have developed a steady economy where the majority of the inhabitants of the city of Lasg have all generally equal amounts of wealth. There are those who have multiple boats with multiple deckhands who export more fish gaining a bigger profit, but the city has outlawed companies to be on the river. That means no one company is allowed to come in and buy the boats and rule the market. The reason for this is due to the city’s respect for the lake. They think that if every citizen has equal share and profit from the lake the average citizen will then take better care of it. There is no official military for this city but they have never lost any attacks. The city is surrounded by a large moat that can only be crossed with a passenger ship. Because there is no land access to this city it has limited any other force to attack from the land, meaning not monster attacks or attacks by other cities. There have been attacks from the lake however, pirate kings hoping to score some plunder or take over the town to control its profits. None have succeeded however as this city has a fierce culture of learning how to protect itself. Every citizen is required to know how to swing a sword and to fire a cannon on a ship in case of an attack. There may be no official military but that is due to the fact that every citizen will defend the city if the time does come. However, the city of Lasg does have a rival in the lake causing small skirmishes to happen often.  The city of Reidh is located on the west of Caren lake and is bordered by two rivers that lead into the lake. Many times the city of Reidh tried to expand its interests in the lake. 

City of Reidh

The city of Reidh is a very unique city in the realm of Shaoghal. This city is located right next to the mountain range of the East and in between two rivers that lead into Caren lake. The majority of the common folk of the realm try to avoid this city as this city is different from the rest of the world. There is a mixture of races here in this city. The prominent race is this city is the gnome. Deep gnomes were the original founders of this city but have always had an open mindset towards other races moving in. The deep gnomes who founded this city were refugees of a drow attack on one of their underground cities in the Underdark. One of the drow cities launched a full attack on the deep gnomes completely razing the city forcing the survivors to flee. Instead of traveling to another deep gnome city or setting another one up in the Underdark the deep gnomes were determined to get away from the drow. The survivors set forth towards the surface eventually finding an exit. When the survivors made it to the surface they found a small village of rock gnomes. The rock gnomes were generous to their distant cousins and took them in even though they were from worlds apart. The gnomes decided to stick together and found the spot where they wanted to settle. They founded the village of Reidh with the idea of cooperation and invention. It eventually became the huge city it is today sue to those mentalities. It was encouraged to have those of other races move in as when new people would move in new ideas would follow. The culture of the city was focused heavily on new ideas and inventions. They heavily encouraged the ideas of alchemy and mechanics. This gave rise to the large guilds located in the city. The alchemy guild, demolitions guild, the tinkerers guild, and the air guild are the largest guilds in the city. It is these guilds that run the city. Each guild has its own form of hierarchy but each guild has one representative to form a council with the other representatives to rule the city together. 

This is the only city in the realm to unlock the secrets of electricity. Many of the common folk from around the realm assume this is a different type of magic and fear it. Due to the fear of the weirdness of this city, it has a slightly different dialect and style of clothing compared to the rest of the realm. The inhabitants of this city are often looked at with wonder when they visit other cities. The houses in this city are made out of metals and wood. When an outside traveler comes into this city they are greater by the sight of mass intercity pipes weaving their way through the city carrying different substances to help the city run. There are large gears that are turning on the outside of buildings making large clunking noises. Perhaps the strangest thing to great new travelers when they enter the city is there are no torches lining the cobblestone streets. Instead, there are tall black metal posts that generate blue light. The thing this city is probably known best for however are the flying machines that are always over the city. One of the major guilds of the city of Reidh is the air guild. They are obsessed with the idea of flying and are constantly trying to improve their inventions. The main flying contraptions that fly overhead of the city are the air ballons and the blimps. The blimps range in sizes going from the smallest made for one person to the largest which can be lavish hotel style blimps. The biggest invention they are trying to get working is the individual wing set. The city of Reidh gets most of its energy from wind turbines and water mills next to the rivers. They also have found a large amount of explosive material in the mountain that the demolitions guild uses to make new caverns or bombs to help with construction. Reidh is fairly content being by itself with limited interaction from other cities as other cities distrust the citizens of Reidh. They do trade with other cities however on the rare occasion. Reidh has played around with the idea of expanding into Caren lake and trying to find new inventions they can do with the lake. However, the city of Lasg is fiercely protective of the lake and fights every time Reidh tries to move in. Reidh could easily burn down their wooden ships and the whole wooden city but choose not to as they do not care for the lake that much and the over all attitude to constantly find new things to invent does not cloud their moral judgment. Overall Reidh is a city full of ambitious ideas and quirky individuals. 

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Out of class writing

The Island of Akemund: 

The Island of Akemund is the largest island in the world of Shaoghal. This island has the largest population in it and the most changing regions. Akemund has deserts, forests, plenty of mountain ranges and rolling hills, marshes, and perhaps the largest region on the island the Great plains of Mor Feur. There are four major cities on this island with a large number of towns and small unnamed villages. On the map, there are only a few towns marked. I only marked the most important ones but there are others. My personal favorite feature on the island is the peninsula of Leth-Eilean (Leth-Eilean is the direct translation of Gaelic). This peninsula is blacked by the mainland by a large and rugged mountain range. The mountain range is almost impossible to pass except for one road and a few hidden trails only known by a few. The road is on the south of the mountain range leading into the more narrow strip of land. The land is covered by mountains on all sides causing a desert to form. Past the desert, there is the main feature of the peninsula. With more mountains, at the end of the peninsula, there is one city. The city is mainly of dwarves living there. This island has a mix of races living on it though. It has large populations of humans, elves, gnomes, halflings, and dwarves. There are also other races living on the island but with smaller populations such as tieflings, half-orcs, goliaths, Aarakocras and others. The many mountain ranges have caves that never seem to have an end, many of these caves lead to the dreaded Underdark where many surface dwellers never return

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Out of class writing

THE LORE: 

I am going to list the lore of everything on the map with a little background and a small introduction towards it. All the names I got from google translate, I would type in basic English words such as mountain, empty, desert, island, and other descriptive terms and translate them into Gaelic. Gaelic sounds like a fantasy language and looks like it in writing with all of the accents on it. The hardest part will be the politics cause I am not good at real-life politics. The first thing about this world is that there are no nations. There are large cities that act indecently of one another. Of course, there are smaller towns and villages as well. This world only consists of my small islands. As far as the people who inhabit my world are concerned outside of these islands are just empty ocean. Many a sea fairing adventure has gone out to find new lands only to never return again. There are stories of a whole world under the sea inhabited by sea folk who want nothing to do with the surface world. But those are only stories that surely have no merit to them… All the islands are located in the realm of Shaoghal, it is the only world the inhabitants have ever known. One of the biggest issues for the inhabitants of this realm is how hard it is to get to any of the other islands. Besides for a few specific areas, like the Comhla islands and the Bay of Bagh, the waters are treacherous. There are wild storms that will appear out of nowhere and rip apart ships when you get into the deeper waters.  There are vortexes that will appear out of nowhere pulls ships down to the depths. In order for anyone to travel between islands, it requires the most dedicated and seasoned sea fairing individuals. Travel to other islands does happen with these skilled and brave sailers but it is rare and can still end in misery with the slightest mistake. Because of this the inhabitants of the biggest island in the realm, Akemund, do not have that much information and interaction with anyone who lives on the other islands. The out of universe reason for this is because it will be easier for me as a DM to keep them contained to the main island, and it can offer me some fun opportunities to make them shipwrecked or abducted by the tritons who live underwater (that is going to be a whole other map that I will only do if my players want me too).  

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Out of class writing

The Map:

The way I drew the map is I watched some youtube videos to teach me. They are the same ones I watched last time. I am not an artist so it still looks like garbage but it is still able to be read and that is what is important. The way I started is I went to sprouts to buy some raw pinto beans and poured them over a piece of paper. They clump up a little bit so you take a pencil and draw an outline around them where they fall. That way the shape of your land is random. There is an order in the way you want to draw your map. Of course, coastlines come first, then elevation and mountains, next are the water features like lakes rivers and the seas, then the forests, and finally it goes unique terrain and finalizing it. As I am not an artist I did the most basic option for the mountains of just triangles overlapping each other. It was fun doing the mountains and while placing them thinking about how the mountains can affect the world. After the mountains, I did some rivers and lakes. I decided to stick with two big major lakes on the main island with the rivers coming down from the mountains feeding into it. One thing I decided to do with this map is to not add too much detail to it. I did not want to have it be overcrowded. And I felt like if I added too much detail it would restrict me with certain things when I have players in the world. With the forest I was a little more sparing I only drew a few large forests. Where they were dense enough to show up on a map. I am assuming that there will be trees everywhere in just certain areas of forests. The style I decided to stick with is a cloud type with arrows symbolizing the tops of trees. I did not have a plan while I was drawing my map. I went into it with an open mind and decided what I wanted and when I wanted it. 

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Out of class writing

Intro: 

D&D or otherwise known as dungeon and dragons was first published in 1971. For Christmas one year my parents gave me the D&D  starter set, the big red box with the classic 70s style art on it. I tried to play it with my siblings but it was way too confusing. It wasn’t until I was a teenager around the age of sixteen years old that I tried to play it again with my friends. There was a large learning curve and it took us a couple of different evenings to be able to figure out how the game is actually meant to be played. I was always the dungeon master. The dungeon master does not have a playable character but instead is the “God” over the world and gets to decide the story and the overall direction for the players. While my group played we would sit around a long glass rectangle table where at the end of the table we would light this color-changing wax candle that was long and skinny. It was a weird tradition we would do, we could only play as long as the candle was lit. We would put the candle in a glass bottle and have the wax meltdown the bottle, after a few weeks the entire bottle was covered with different colored wax. I remember one night before my senior prom my friends and I played a game from six PM to six AM. My friends and I never bought any premade campaigns but instead would come up with our own worlds or quests. I was the one in charge of coming up with new quests every weekend. After a while, I thought it would be fun to just draw my own map and have a certain amount of cities and towns in there. I would use the same map and cities and towns every weekend and come up with new things for the players to do in that certain area. Having my own world was fun as I could have the actions the players did change the world around them. I have since lost that map and all of those friends are now scattered around the country. But, I still had fun coming up with my own D&D world. So that is what I am going to try and do now. Draw my own map and write about the different aspects of the world so that way if I ever find my self another group of people to play with I will have a world that the players can dive into. 

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Out of class writing

I am going to be doing my own fantasy world with my own map in the forgotten realms world (the world of dungeons and dragons) 

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Final Draft

Lochlan Dean

Fish 

English 2020

March 30th, 2020

Research Conducted on Altruism

Throughout human society’s history, there have always been questions about science and philosophy with the biggest names being Aristotle and Socrates for their philosophical ideas or Albert Einstein and Rosalind Franklin for their advancements throughout history. We receive new answers to questions and new questions every day that need to be answered. One notion that we researchers have looked into is the idea of altruism. Altruism is the concept of selfless actions or thoughts towards another individual. The term altruism was first thought up by a sociologist and philosopher of science named Auguste Comte. Ever since then altruism has been a major topic for evolutionary psychology researchers, psychology researchers, evolutionary biologists, and others to look into. The concept of altruism is a debated one today as there are few concrete facts about it. There are many hypotheses, theories, and ideas on the subject done by many different researchers throughout the decades. One of the biggest questions that is still unanswered is “where does altruism come from?” There may be some debates on the concept of altruism but one thing that is generally agreed upon is the idea that humans are altruistic and have empathy. One thing that is not known is where that human altruism comes from - is it biological in our genes or psychological? For this paper, I have decided to look into different sources to get an understanding of altruism and to be able to add my own voice to the discourse. I have looked at a variety of different sources ranging from public speeches, mini-documentaries, and of course, a number of peer-reviewed scholarly articles. As there are new studies being conducted frequently and new information being collected by them I have limited my sources to those conducted within the last 15 years. The discourse for altruism is vast and there are different ideas on where altruism has its origination in humans. 

One of the biggest questions that researchers want to answer about altruism is if it is biological or psychological. I am sure we are all familiar with Charles Darwin’s contributions to our understanding of nature and biology in his book On the Origin of Species. Darwin argues that all life in this world evolved through a brutal competition of existence. It is Darwin who is responsible for the idea of natural selection, which he thought is how life evolved. He also used the term survival of the fittest to describe natural selection. Natural selection is accepted by evolutionists to be a process that species evolve. Self-preservation is also thought to be a major drive factor on what dictates humans actions. There is the idea according to neoclassical economics that rational beings do whatever they need to in order to maximize their own wealth. The traditional views of both evolutionary biology and psychology have left little room for altruism. Darwin himself was unable to give a reason for biological altruism in his book. In his book, Darwin said “Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect which… inevitably causes the death of the insect” (Darwin Ch. 6) Altruism is not only a human concept, but it is also found all throughout the animal kingdom in nature. 

Altruism is an umbrella term that can cover a vast number of other terms. There may not be one set type of altruism but there are different terms that are generally agreed upon. Two big main ones are biological altruism and psychological altruism. Biological altruism is tied to the biological fitness of the organism. When an organism does a biological altruistic act it is an act that helps the survival of another at the cost of its own physical health. As stated earlier altruism is not just found in humans but is also found in various animals in the animal kingdom. Some prime examples are vampire bats regurgitating blood to feed other bats from other families if they failed to hunt that night, or when an animal does a warning cry when they spot a predator, thus drawing attention to themself but warning others. Psychological altruism is when the actor just wants good for others with no reward. Psychological altruism relies heavily on the psychological state of the actor at the time. Another type of altruism that is similar to psychological altruism is helping altruism, which covers the acts that do not fall into either of the previously mentioned categories. Helping altruism is the concept that humans help other humans just for the sake of doing the action of helping someone, instead of it focusing on an individual’s mental state. This type of altruism focuses on all of humankind as a whole. Any act can fall into an individual type or multiple types. With the debate and non-unified ideas, there are many other types that fall under those three categories. There are some subcategories that are generally agreed upon. The first one is kin selection. Kin selection is an altruistic act for one’s relatives or possibly another organism in their small grouping. A second is reciprocal altruism. Reciprocal altruism is the idea of doing an altruistic act for another organism with the expectation that you will receive an altruistic act back; the term “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” describes this one well. The third idea is indirect reciprocity, which is the idea that acts are given on the concept of reputation and wanting to avoid getting a bad reputation. Signaling is an idea that is not as commonly accepted as the other three, since it is similar to indirect reciprocity. The difference is that instead of performing an altruistic act to avoid getting a bad reputation, you do an altruistic act to signal that you are a good person. There is another idea of altruism called egotistical altruism. The idea of egotistical altruism is being altruistic towards others so that it will better the world which in turn will make your own life better. Egotistical altruism argues that the reason people will potentially do altruistic acts towards total strangers that they will never see again can be because of this idea. An example of egotistical altruism is someone donating money to help better conditions in some small groups in a third world country so that the inhabitants can have a better life and therefore make the world a better place. Education is a good example of egotistical altruism: if you help someone with financial issues and they are able to get an education, they can further contribute towards certain fields. Altruism can be thought of as a family tree chart, with the word altruism at the top as the head of the family with other terms going down getting more into specifics but they can all be traced back up to altruism. Having a general concept of the different ideas of altruism can help give a better understanding of altruism itself and hopefully help at looking at the origins of altruism, and solving the puzzle that is “why are humans altruistic?”

There are many different ideas on altruism and different fields of study hope to be able to explain it. One of these fields of study is genetics. Genetics is the study of heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics. Genetics is a relatively new science that started in 1905 but did not take off in popularity until technology had advanced enough for a scientist to be able to accurately look into it. One such event was when the first picture of DNA was taken. The picture was taken by Watson and Crick using a technique called X-ray crystallography that was invented by Rosalind Franklin. All living things have DNA makeup inside of them making them who they are. Despite humans being separated throughout the world, we are still generally all alike and that is due to the fact that we are all 99.9% genetically alike with each other. Genetics is one way that evolutionary biologists have tried to explain altruism. 

Richard Dawkins is a well-known scientist around the world who presents one explanation on why humans are altruistic. Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author who has been contributing to the field of science since the 1960s. Richard Dawkins came up with the idea of the “selfish gene” on altruism and published it in 1976. Dawkins argued that humans are all just genetic survival machines. Survival of the fittest really only means the survival of the genes - a gene that doesn’t look after itself doesn’t survive. Richard Dawkins tries to use the science of genetics to crack the code of altruism. Dawkins makes the argument that the main objective of genes is to survive, which they do by organisms reproducing and passing the genes onto the offspring, essentially making genes “immortal.” He argues that the way our genes can achieve their goal of being passed down to future generations is by the typical self-preservation mentality. The way altruism comes into the picture is Dawkins claims that there are instances where the gene can achieve its selfish goals by doing a form of altruism. This theory best supports the idea of kin selection. Kin selection is when an individual organism acts in the best interests of other members of their family and/or small group, even at a cost to itself. The argument is that due to the selfish desires of our genes they produce unselfish actions to those around us. If our genes help related organisms reproduce, by helping ensure their survival, a gene then succeeds in helping copies of itself be reproduced and passed on. Dawkins’s theory is that altruism came from the selfish desires of our genes and we are just the vessel that carries our genes and DNA. 

There are some counter-arguments to Dawkins’s selfish gene theory. Richard Dawkins’s theory on the selfish gene is only backed by biological altruism and not by psychological altruism. One criticism is on Dawkins’s gene-centered view. Dawkins assumes the struggle for survival takes place on the genetic level and focuses on the survival of the genes instead of the organism as a whole. While that argument can be valid, many scientists have considered it too fluid of an argument without enough scientific backing for it. The main criticism is that this theory is too narrow-focused. It relies on genetic survivability and uses kin selection as a major backing up point, but there are many other types of altruism that this theory does not help back up. This theory only applies to populations in which sexual reproduction causes complete allelic mixing, panmictic organisms. There are organisms that are not panmictic so this theory would not apply to them. 

There is another idea on what the origins of altruism are that follows evolutionary genetics and genes. All the ideas of altruism that have been previously explained in this research paper have all been ideas that give back to the actor. There was one group of scientists, who called themselves the collective, that came up with the idea that the reason why humans are altruistic has to do with none of those ideas. They operate under the assumption that behavioral mechanisms are not perfect goal-seeking devices, like what Richard Dawkins claimed the genes were. The collective thinks that behavior mechanisms are context-specific physiological systems that respond to different environmental cues in order to engage what is the best course of action, based on evolutionary history. The collective think that altruism is backed more by psychological reasons and not biological ones. Some evidence to help support this idea is a study done on people helping other people. It was found that people were more likely to perform an altruistic act while having outside environmental forces paying a part. In particular, this study found that altruistic acts were performed always but that there was a stark increase when people were being watched by robots with human-looking eyes. The argument is that humans have strong reciprocity towards other humans, but that the reason for it is not due to any of the reasons previously mentioned (such as kin selection or reciprocal altruism). The collective argues that there is a biological and evolutionary logic to human cooperation. The idea is that the reason humans are altruistic is due to genes misfiring. The common human social environment, society, has only been around for 0.1% of all of human history; or in metaphorical terms has advanced in a gene’s eyeblink. The idea is, our social environment advancing so quickly has left some strange tendencies left over from past eras. It is thought that due to kin selection or reciprocal altruism or other forms of altruism, it helped humankind survive and advance in past eras when we lived in smaller groups. Now that we live in the world today things are different. A perfect example to liken it to is sexual reproduction. Humans feel a desire to reproduce and generate offspring. There are biological and evolutionary triggers to make us feel desire even though in today’s time humans engage in sexual intercourse without the purpose of having offspring. Contraceptives have been invented to thwart the outcome of having offspring, and yet we still have the biological urges and desires to engage in sexual intercourse. The idea is that being altruistic is much the same. In the past, there was the biological and genetic push to be altruistic to better help our species survive, and that is the reason people feel the desire to be nice today. It is a leftover evolutionary push. The difference between this argument for the origin of altruism and the selfish gene theory is this argument pushes the idea that it is a gene misfire - something from the past that is still in us - and it focuses on the organism as a whole. The selfish gene theory focuses on the individual genetic view and claims that the selfish gene is still within us. 

There are of course problems with this argument as well. This argument states that humans are naturally and biologically altruistic and caring. Perhaps the biggest reason why this argument might be hard to accept is because it goes against decades of biological research that states humans are inherently selfish. This argument is relatively new to the discourse compared to the many other ideas that have been researched about human nature. The economics standpoint is perhaps the most effective counter-argument to this idea. Another argument for this idea is the fact that there have to be social, political, or environmental restrictions upon people or else negative interactions can occur between people. Some examples of that are the pirate rule in the Caribbean in the 18th century, warlords, and other anarchistic situations. The argument is that we can not simply rely on humans being naturally altruistic or empathetic towards the good of the group. Instead, we require social, environmental, political, and economic restrictions to ensure the cooperation of individuals and have them avoid temptation. 

There are other voices in the existing work as the body of work on altruism is quite vast. The main reason I have conducted the research for this paper is to develop my own understanding of the issue so that I can add my own voice and arguments to the discourse. Throughout my experience of gathering knowledge on this subject, I noticed a severe lack of study about certain issues or actions that can be considered altruistic. One of the areas where I found the least study was regarding actions that were done after death or actions that resulted in the death of the altruist. A prime example of what I am bringing up is organ donation. Being an organ donor is something someone can decide when they receive their driver’s license but it can be changed whenever the individual wants. There are a huge number of scholarly and opinion articles about organ donation, but that particular topic is not central to my argument. Another example of what I was talking about are instances where the individual sacrifices him- or herself for the sake of others. Roy Benavidez was an American soldier who fought in the Vietnam war. He received the medal of honor for an instance called “six hours in hell.” He fought off thousands of Vietnamese soldiers while defending a position where other American troops were getting evacuated by helicopter. He also carried multiple bodies to the helicopter, all while receiving multiple wounds. He waited until he was the last soldier to get on. These are of course some extreme examples of what I want to focus on. I propose that in future research projects a new category of altruism needs to be considered, since it doesn’t seem that organ donation and self-sacrifice fit in any of the previously-discussed categories. Organ donation and sacrificing yourself for the sake of others are cases of extreme empathy and altruism that I do not believe fall under the current umbrella terms. Perhaps by looking into these extreme situations, researchers can define a new type of altruism and get a better understanding of what the driving force behind actions such as these are. 

Some counter-arguments for my idea can be found. Arguments could be made that even though those situations are extreme they can still be classified by other terms. Organ donation, for example, could be viewed as signaling: trying to show that you are a good person by being an organ donor. My response to this is that most of the time being an organ donor is a small mark on the individuals’ license and is not a thing that is often brought up in social situations. Further research would have to be conducted solely on the topic of organ donation to better understand where it fits in the puzzle of human altruism. An individual who does a drastic action to better the chance of survival for others at the cost of their own physical well-being could also be misclassified. Some counter-arguers could claim that even though those actions are extreme they still fall under kin selection. Kin selection could be a good umbrella for these types of self-sacrificing action. The idea of sacrificing yourself for the better biological health of others does fall under the definition of kin selection, but I still propose that there is more to it. Kin selection normally contains things such as grooming in primates, sacrificing some food for bats, or some kind of warning cry to alert the group. Hardly ever are instances observed in other animals of individuals sacrificing themselves for others, except of course parental units defending their offspring. Egotistical altruism could be claimed for both of them as by doing either act it would directly positively affect other people’s lives and indirectly make the world a better place. My response to that argument is this: true, the world would be a better place, but it comes at the cost of the life of the altruist so therefore the betterment does not affect them. Perhaps if you combine egotistical and kin selection it could make sense as you want to make the world a better place for your offspring or other close friends or family. I still believe that further research needs to be conducted on these issues as they have not been researched as they should be. I propose the research can be conducted by investing time, personal, and perhaps some resources into conducting a wide mass study on the mindset of those who are organ donors or those who have performed extreme actions of sacrifice. Better understanding the mindset of those individuals and what their reasoning was in those instances would give us a better understanding of the reason for those actions: whether biological or psychological.  Better understanding the reason humans perform altruistic acts is the first step to better understand the origin and reason why humans are altruistic.

Throughout this research paper I have taken a look into the discourse of altruism. I have looked at the various different terms and types of altruism, resulting in the words having a trickle effect of coverage. The literature on altruism is quite large, with many different ideas and hypotheses on the reason why humans have altruistic tendencies and what the origin of it is - if it is biological or psychological. Richard Dawkins has a theory that its origin sits upon the selfish gene concept. The selfish gene concept is the idea that the reason humans are altruistic is due to selfish gene desires. Our genes desire to reproduce and survive so with that desire they produce altruism to better help the survivability of the gene. The other argument was the reason humans are altruistic is due to the logical evolutionary development of humans. An opposing argument claimed that being altruistic was the best course of action for survivability. Human society has advanced in an extremely short time, genetically speaking, so some tendencies that don’t fit modern society have remained in our species. One biological tendency we still have in our current social environment is the desire to engage in sexual intercourse. With contraceptives we have thwarted the purpose of sexual intercourse (to reproduce offspring) and yet humans still have the desire and biological push. It is proposed that altruism is much like that: that we had to have the biological push to be altruistic to better enhance our species survivability and that is a leftover genetic misfire today. 

My own argument for this paper was to invest further research into different ideas of altruism as there are actions that I do not believe fall under any current idea of altruism. It is my thought that if further research is conducted on altruism it will lead to a better understanding of the reasons we feel altruistic tendencies, possibly helping to crack the biological puzzle of why are we altruistic. 

Sources 

Andy80o, “Richard Dawkins on Altruism and The Selfish Gene”. Youtube, September 1st, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8C-ntwUpzM&feature=youtu.be.

Burnham, Terence C., and Dominic D. P. Johnson. “The Biological and Evolutionary Logic of Human Cooperation.” Analyse & Kritik, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2005. OneSearch, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2005-0107

Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. 1 ed., 1859

Hoffman, Edward, et al. “The Psychological Benefits of Receiving Real-Life Altruism.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 60, no. 2, Mar. 2020, pp. 187–204. EBSCOhost, DOI:10.1177/0022167817690280.   

Joan B. Silk, and Bailey R. House. “The Evolution of Altruistic Social Preferences in Human Groups.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, vol. 371, no. 1687, 2016, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.24768660&site=eds-live.

Kurzgesagt. “A selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place - Egoistic Altruism.” Youtube, March 18th, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ&feature=youtu.be. 

Marsh, Abigail A. “Neural, Cognitive, and Evolutionary Foundations of Human Altruism.” WIREs: Cognitive Science, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 2016, p. 59. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=112128886&site=eds-live.

Ramsey, Grant. “Can Altruism Be Unified?” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biol & Biomed Sci, vol. 56, Apr. 2016, pp. 32–38. EBSCOhost, DOI:10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.10.007.

Singer, Peter. TED. “Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism.” Youtube, May 20th, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Diuv3XZQXyc&feature=youtu.be

TEDx Talks. “The Science of Altruism | Dustin Daniels | TEDxFSU” Youtube, June 29th, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brqg4HA3mUI&feature=youtu.be. 

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Final Draft- Opinion Series

Audience one: Academic

The purpose of this summary is to elucidate the reader on the subject of altruism. A simple definition of altruism is the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. Now, of course, the term altruism can be used as an umbrella term as there are different kinds of altruism such as biological altruism and psychological altruism and within those two there are; kin-selection, reciprocal and indirect reciprocal altruism, signaling, and others as there are debates today on the different types of altruism. Biological altruism refers to acts that benefit the survival of the species as a whole as psychological altruism refers to the empathy towards others or individuals. Biological altruism and evolutionary altruism are oftentimes used as interchangeable terms. The concept of biological altruism is a very scintillating subject as it has little room in the traditional Darwinism views of self preserver and natural selection. There are numerous debates about the evolution of altruism in humans, but the biggest arguments that are talked about the most are kinship and reciprocal altruism. Kinship is oftentimes found in the animal kingdom with the biggest examples being in primates, vampire bats, meerkats, and many other social dynamic animals. One hypothesis on why humans have the psychological drive to be altruistic is that there is a genetic lapse in our DNA. Human ancestors used to live in smaller groups and tribes and it is thought that kinship is one of the many reasons humans were able to survive, after all as Richard Dawkins put it, humans are just vessels to carry our genes into the next generation genes are immortal. Meaning, it is in our genetic code to want to help our fellow tribe but because our ancient ancestors’ history happened antecedent to modern human society, which has only existed for 0.1% of human history, we still have the lust to be nice to all of our fellow humankind. There are other hypotheses of course such as selfish egotistical altruism and reciprocal altruism. Reciprocal altruism is the idea of quid pro quo, it is doing an altruistic act with the expectation of them doing an altruistic act for you in the future, you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. Some evolutionists think that reciprocal altruism is how our altruistic genes could have been chosen over non-altruistic genes. Of course, there is the reward behavior of the serotonin hypothesis, the hypothesis that one who has higher levels of serotonin in the brain is more in favor of cooperation.  Many explorational studies have been conducted on the subject matter of altruism, many of them being on the origins or the why and how. A few studies have been conducted on the effects of altruism. As one studies the science behind this subject matter it can sometimes be easy to disassociate oneself from the current effects of receiving real-life altruism. There have been a few studies done on this very subject. One study, that was conducted in Venezuela, found a direct link towards people who have experienced an act of altruism having a more optimistic view on life and generally having more positive mental health than those who claimed to never experience an act of altruism. Of course, there is the one reward behavior of the serotonin hypothesis, the hypothesis that one who has higher levels of serotonin in the brain is more in favor of cooperation.  The subject of altruism is a bigger field of study than a layman person might think. The study of altruism is a rather new conundrum in the academic world, but as interest grows perchance more studies will be conducted with this subject in mind. 

Audience two: Middle schooler/young kid

Today we are going to be learning about the subject known as altruism! Altruism can be a pretty big daunting subject to start learning about, but by the end of this summary, you will have a good understanding of the subject and be able to impress all of your friends by explaining some cool new facts. First, the simple definition of altruism is a belief or a practice of being selfless or having a concern for others. Some examples can include something small such as holding the door open for someone all the way to something big such as donating an organ. Now altruism is a big statement that can encompass many different definitions. In fact, there are debates going on about how many different kinds of altruism there are or what the exact definitions are on different kinds of altruism. Some different examples of different kinds of altruism include kin-selection, reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity, and signaling. There are others but today we are just going to focus on these four. Kin-selection is found in many species of animals all throughout the animal kingdom such as vampire bats, meerkats, chipmunks, and many others, not just in humans. Kin-selection is altruism towards someone who is your kin or within your small group such as grooming, giving off an alarm call for predators, or bats regurgitating up blood for other bats who may have failed to hunt during the night. Reciprocal altruism is the idea of doing an altruistic act towards someone with the expectation of them doing an altruistic act back to you, the expression you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours describes this perfectly. Indirect reciprocity is when someone does an altruistic act based on the idea of reputation and not wanting a bad one. Signaling is similar to indirect reciprocity as signaling is doing an altruistic act for the purpose of showing, or “signaling”, that you are an altruistic person.  There are also some debates on if altruism in humans is biological or psychology, basically meaning is in just due to nature or is it in our heads. Now that I have given you a small introduction into what altruism is how about we take a look at the different ideas on how altruism came to be what it is in humans today. As I said earlier, there are many different ideas and debates on how altruism came to be, but what isn’t debated is that humans are altruistic. This can often time be illogical or irrational when you look at nature through the traditional way of self-preservation with the survival of the fittest or natural selection. So if we are so irrational by being nice to each other, why are we?  Well, that topic is still unknown but there have been many studies conducted on it! As I said earlier, it is unknown if altruism is a biological or psychological trait in humans. There are multiple hypotheses on how altruism came to be the way it is now throughout our human history. One hypothesis is that it is a genetic misfiring in our brains. Let me explain, in our bodies we have DNA and genes that make up every living thing not just in humans. It is thought that in human history we used to live in small groups or small tribes and that one of the reasons we are alive today is because it is in our genes to be altruistic. In nature our genes are what we pass on to our spring, so you might think of genes are having superpowers as they are immortal. Another theory is that it isn’t in our DNA makeup at all but instead is a social pressuring factor, that is found in multiple animals, to better help our survival. Now we may not know where altruism comes from so you may be wondering why am I telling you all this. Well, there have also been studies done on what the effects of doing an altruistic act that can be for someone. There was a study done in the country of Venezuela that found a direct link of people who reported having a random altruistic act and their mental health and outlook on life it’s self. Those who had a random act reported having higher positive mental health and a more positive outlook on life. Now, of course, it is always good to give other people acts of kindness but you might be thinking “well how does this help me? Well there is something called egotistical altruism. The idea of egotistical altruism is almost like reciprocal altruism. It is doing an altruistic act towards someone, perhaps even someone that lives in another country that you will never ever meet, and making their life better. If their life gets better than that makes the world better which then, in turn, makes your life better! Altruism is surely a fascinating subject to learn about and hopefully, in the future, there will be even more information for kids such as your self to look into. 

Audience Three: A person who has just left their religion and now believes the world is a toxic place with no meaning and wants to find some scientific reason to believe in people (basically someone looking for optimism) 

So after a big transition in life, like leaving your religion, it is fairly common to look into new subjects. One subject worth looking into would be the subject of altruism. Altruism is the concept of having a selfless concern and the overall well being of others. Altruism is not a new concept but we are just now learning new things about it within these last few decades. While it is known that altruism is a concept found in humans there is still some debate surrounding the topic. One thing that is still debated is if altruism in humans is biological or psychological. Psychological altruism means acting out of concern for the well-being of others, without regard to your self and biological altruism refers to behavior that helps the survival of a species without benefiting the altruists. Depending on what study or source you are reviewing you may come across how different authors will use different terms or different definitions. Some general terms you should be familiar with those are kin-selection, reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocal altruism, and signaling. Kin-selection is acts that benefit genetic relatives or in some cases those in your small tribe or group. Reciprocal altruism is the idea of doing an altruistic act for someone with the expectation of receiving a reward or an altruistic act towards yourself later. Indirect reciprocity are acts that are given based on the concept of reputation, not wanting a bad one. Signaling is the concept of doing altruistic acts to signal to others that you are a good person. After hearing that it can sound very mechanical and make it sound like humans always have some hidden motive for everything they do but one thing to keep in mind while we look at this is this is a debated topic still. One thing that is still debated is the exact origin of altruism. This nay or may not come as a surprise but altruism is not only found in humans. In fact, altruism can be found in many different animals in the animal kingdom such as chipmunks, vampire bats, meerkats, and a variety of other primates. So if it is found in other species where did it come from? There are multiple hypotheses on that subject. One hypothesis is that altruistic genes were selected through natural selection over nonaltruistic genes because there is a logical process for human evolution. Essentially the reason we, and other social animals, have survived and evolved with altruism is that altruism was the most logical way for us to evolve. Altruism is here in us no matter where it came from. There have been studies done on the effects of altruistic acts being done and how it can affect people. There was one study conducted in Venezuela that found a direct positive correlation towards those that experienced an altruistic act and their mental health. In the study, they found that those who had received a random altruistic act had more positive mental health and generally had a more optimistic outlook on life. The effects of altruism are huge and you never know what you can do for someone just by doing one small act. There is also another form of altruism called egotistical altruism. The idea of that one is by helping others, even someone whom you may never meet in another country, have a better life they will make the world better which will give you a better life. Some can look at that mentality with negativity and claim all people are selfish, but despite the reasoning, the world still becomes a better place with egotistical altruism. The interest in altruism is growing through the years so maybe there will be more research on it in the future. While the direct reason and why are still being debated, we do know for now is that humans are altruistic and that it has been observed to benefit others. Being consciously aware of altruism and the effects it can have on other people can help you get a better understanding of empathy and perhaps give a person an extra drive to be altruistic which could potentially make the world a better place in the process. 

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Finale Draft for Annotated Bibliography

The science of altruism (TED): 

Published June 29th, 2016. Religious def: loving others as you love yourself. “Altruism is what defines who we are as humans and where we come from.” Survival of the fittest. Cooperation has been found to be more effective than the survival of the fittest for a species as a whole (Ex. ants/bees/primates/ bats etc.) (Think of my bio-anthropology class lesson when we talked about this.) Controlled experiments with toddlers where someone will drop something or try to complete a task. TWO main things happen- babies/toddlers will normally try to help and pupil dilation that is linked to concern or empathy happened (When babies couldn’t help their pupils dilated more.) An argument against altruism is people are ration and self-interested (ex. Baker baking bread to sell for money for himself instead of feeding people) BUT people make irrational decisions all the time for various reasons, we are complicated with altruistic tendencies. He then talks about race privilege and inherent advantages in institutions which I didn’t understand how it connected. He claims altruism is in our genetic legacy 

TEDx Talks. “The Science of Altruism | Dustin Daniels | TEDxFSU” Youtube, June 29th, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brqg4HA3mUI&feature=youtu.be. 

Richard Dawkins on Altruism and The Selfish Gene (video of Dawkins):

Published September 1st, 2012. Charles Darwin argued in his book origin of species that the evolution of life on earth evolved through a brutal competition of existence. Altruistic behaviors in animals could include warning cries, group grooming. Richard Dawkins uses the science of genetics to crack the code of altruism. Genes are what build us up and make who you are. Dawkins claims we are survival machines who carry our genes and our goal is to pass on the genetics through reproduction so they live on, (essentially genes are immortal. The survival of the fittest really only means the survival of the genes. A gene that did not look after itself would not survive; the meaning of selfish gene

 How do selfish genes give us altruistic behavior? Different answers: Kinship- the altruistic gene is passed around a family and given kin selection where they will do what it takes to make sure their family survives. Reciprocal altruism- you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Give favor to receive one back someday. But wait those can’t be the only reasons b/c after all humans give to charity, give blood, cry at the blight of strangers and humans are generally nicer than the selfish gene theory would suggest- Goes against the dog eat dog world that Darwinism suggests. There are arguments against the selfish gene theory like consultation behavior seen in chimps. The veneer theory- the idea that morals are a thin veneer on top of the inherent animal nature of us. The veneer theory argues that humans are inheritably selfish and nasty. Darwin suggests that we have gone beyond kin selection and that humans have a lust to be nice. Such as be nice to whoever you meet because in nature animals are parts of small groups where they know everyone in their group more likely to be surrounded by kin and cousins. That could still be there in humans but we have gone too big and now feel that way with everyone. Darwin compares being nice to being horny. A misfiring of the gene. EX: Humans are horny in nature to reproduce but now we have contraception to not have kids but we are still horny knowing we have kids-that is a misfire of that gene. Being nice to people could be wired into us from when humans lived in small groups of close kin and groups of close acquaintances within it would pay to reciprocate favors. 

Andy80o, “Richard Dawkins on Altruism and The Selfish Gene”. Youtube, September 1st, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8C-ntwUpzM&feature=youtu.be.

The Biological and Evolutionary Logic of Human Cooperation (paper):

Published 2005 Intro talks about how there is a debate between reciprocal altruism and altruism for the good of the group (in humans.) The scholars (the collective) write that “human prosocial behavior is fundamentally incompatible with the economists model of the self-interested actor and the biologist’s model of the self-regarding reciprocal altruist. Basically saying humans are NOT only nice to receive a benefit for it. The collective argues that the solution to the puzzle is an altruistic human pre-disposition to work for the good of the group, arising by group selection. That view contradicts decades of work in biology, economics, and other fields which say humans are only altruistic for underlying selfish reasons. Strong reciprocity- a descriptive term for “people tend to behave prosocially and punish antisocial behavior at a cost to themselves even when the probability of future interactions is low or zero”-- Basically being nice to someone you will most likely never see again. The question isn’t IF people do that or not (it is known people do) but WHY. Different ideas on why we are altruistic: kin Selection- acts benefiting genetic relatives, reciprocal altruism- scratch my back ill scratch yours, indirect reciprocity- acts are given based reputation (not wanting a bad one) and signaling- signaling others you are nice so they should be nice to you. All those give back to the altruist. The collective argues that it’s none of that but instead, it is a genuine force not explained by those four mechanisms. Where they differ is on the origin of the altruistic behavior. Conclusions: Behavioral mechanisms are not perfect goal-seeking devices BUT INSTEAD, context-specific physiological systems that respond to environmental cues in order to engage what was, on average over the course of evolutionary history, the appropriate action. A study found humans would do more good to others and the environment when watched by a robot with human-like eyes.  Studies did find that cooperation increases when you add in Kinship. It was found that human cooperative mechanisms are not in equilibrium with our environment. They argue that there is a biological (proximate) and evolutionary (ultimate) logic to human cooperation. One theory is that our social environment (society) has advanced in a gene’s eye blink (really fast) and that our brains are the same, leaving humans with strange tendencies leftover from past eras. Leading to this being the answer to the puzzle. According to the collective “the moral sentiments that have lead people to value freedom, equality, and representative government is predicated upon strong reciprocity.” But we can not RELY on people being naturally nice due to any of the theories above (ex; pirate rule in 18th century or other war stuff) BUT b/c humans can not be relied upon for the good of the group we must craft social, economic, environmental and political interactions to ensure cooperation against selfish temptation.

Burnham, Terence C., and Dominic D. P. Johnson. “The Biological and Evolutionary Logic of Human Cooperation.” Analyse & Kritik, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2005. OneSearch, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/auk-2005-0107

Can Altruism be unified (paper):

Published November 14th, 2015. Different kinds of altruism (ex. Biological/evolutionary altruism and psychological altruism.) Biological altruism focuses on fitness exchanges- what are the outcomes? Psychological altruism is based on the intentions- an act is Psychological, not due to the outcomes but due to the intentions of the actor. There are other forms that are not just biological or psychological- which we will call helping altruism. The goal of this paper is to clarify the taxonomy of altruism concepts and to consider whether this diversity merely constitutes distinct concepts loosely related and collected under the rubric of altruism or if there is a deeper unity. There is no set number amount of concepts of altruism, it depends on implied meanings in various uses of altruism. But a study in 2013 has made four (4) distinct concepts that are widely used but in this study, she is making several adjustments to that and making her own three (3). Biological Altruism- altruism tied to biological fitness. Linked to core behavioral dispositions (give example.) Psychological Altruism- The actor just wants good for others with no reward. Based on facts about the psychological states of individuals. (give example.) Helping Altruism- The concept that humans help other humans just for the sake of doing the action of helping someone. By definition, this behavior does not rely on an individual psychological state but as humans as a whole. (give example.) How are these all connected together? She argues that altruism is simply polysemous- that the same word is used for what are clearly distinct concepts. Claims since all are labeled altruism that they all have some kind of connection with them but they are all different. In the paper, it claims each type of altruism can be independent of the other two. Ex. assisted suicide could count as helping, despite being detrimental to fitness; tampering with birth control may be unhelpful, despite promoting biological fitness. (a nested view that they are all connected is wrong in her words.) But, she claims altruism is still all one big family of an idea. They are all altruism and any act that falls under those three is an altruistic ideal. She argues that there is a one big framework/framespace of altruism that you can look at to see how they are all connected. She then goes on to talk about how they are all connected together but I don’t really need that information or my paper.

Ramsey, Grant. “Can Altruism Be Unified?” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biol & Biomed Sci, vol. 56, Apr. 2016, pp. 32–38. EBSCOhost, DOI:10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.10.007.

The evolution of altruistic social preferences in human groups(paper): 

Published February 5th, 2016. This paper is about how altruism came to be. There are three hypothesis

Human cooperation is built on the same evolutionary foundations as cooperation in other animal societies, and that fundamental elements of the social preferences that shape our species’ cooperative behavior are also shared with other closely related primates. 

Selective pressures favoring cooperative breeding have shaped the capacity for cooperation and the development of social preferences and produced a common set of behavioral dispositions and social preferences in cooperatively breeding primates and humans. 

The third hypothesis is that humans have evolved derived capacities for collaboration, group-level cooperation and altruistic social preferences that are linked to our capacity for culture. 

Cooperation among unrelated individuals, who do not share direct genetic interests in offspring is uncommon in nature. Current evidence shows that other primates (specifically other chimps) cooperate in a number of contexts. This paper claims studies on altruism for both humans and chimps in controlled environments can give misleading data, it is really hard to study altruism in nature. Even so, it is obvious that humans cooperate more and with more partners than chimpanzees. The cooperative breeding hypothesis says that back in the day mothers needed help raising their offspring so it made a logical evolutionary practice to take care of other people. The cultural group selection hypothesis helps explain how human societies are able to combine high levels of altruism with low levels of relatedness. Cooperative breeding in humans may be part of a broader system of group-level cooperation ( Giving food to a family who didn’t have a successful hunt) 

Joan B. Silk, and Bailey R. House. “The Evolution of Altruistic Social Preferences in Human Groups.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, vol. 371, no. 1687, 2016, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.24768660&site=eds-live.

The Psychological Benefits of Receiving Real-Life Altruism (paper):

This paper talks about a big survey that was conducted in Venezuela. Since altruism is a human concept and not just an American one it is everywhere. The survey had 148 participants (79 men, 67 women, and 2 unknown) (all but 8 were born and raised in Venezuela.) Most were between the ages of 21-40 years old and had at least one college degree. The sample size responded to an online questionnaire about an experience where they got unexpected altruism and how they felt afterward and how it made them think about human nature. This paper is talking about the effects of altruism compared to the others I’ve looked at which normally ask where it came from or why. Out of the 148 people, 64.2% responded with an event of unexpected altruism and out of that 64.2 %, 75%  reported the experience changed their view of life at least strongly. Very few (4.2%) responded that it didn’t affect their views on life at all. Interestingly women were more likely to say they got a boost of gratitude in life than men. People who said that altruistic events made a strong impact on their life were more likely to be very religious. This study wanted to see the effects of receiving unexpected altruism. The foundings were that those who did experience an unexpected altruistic act had way better mental health than those who did not. 

Hoffman, Edward, et al. “The Psychological Benefits of Receiving Real-Life Altruism.” Journal of Humanistic Psychology, vol. 60, no. 2, Mar. 2020, pp. 187–204. EBSCOhost, DOI:10.1177/0022167817690280.   

A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place - Egoistic Altruism (video):

Published March 18th, 2018. This video takes a different approach to the idea of Altruism. It claims that Altruism instead of being an evolutionary concept is a newer concept for our societies (besides kinship altruism.) It focuses more on the future of our societies rather than past societies. They used the terms zero-sum game (the output of economic “pie” would stay the same year by year unless taken) and positive-sum game (the “pie” was getting bigger each year giving people more “pie”.) The positive-sum game came from the industrial revolution. When people get what they want they don’t stop, instead of human nature is to then want something better and improve things for themselves. The positive-sum world has only existed for 0.1% of human history and people are not used to it. Claims that in a positive-sum world it is in your personal self best interests that every human is well of/ including people in countries you will never meet. The more people are well off the better your own life is. That is due to the fact that the better off people are the more people have the freedom and education to the positive-sum world making it better (like a circle kinda.) Improving the lives of those who are worse off has a multiplying effect. Here is an example: a Farmer in a small nation has no effect on you, but if you make him and his family better off then his kids could go to college and make new inventions or contribute to a social function that does affect you. (the research output of humanity would be many times what is it now.) You should want to make the world a better place for others, for your self. Reminds me of the expression the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago the second-best time to plant a tree is right now. I personally do not think this will happen. It is a good idea and one people should strive for I just can not see it happening in the real world. 

Kurzgesagt. “A selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place - Egoistic Altruism.” Youtube, March 18th, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ&feature=youtu.be. 

Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism (video): 

Published May 20th, 2013. This video starts off really dark talking about an event in China where a two-year-old girl was hit by a van and badly bleeding out, she was passed by 3 pedestrians who looked at her and walked past and run over by another van until a street cleaner sounded the alarm (she died.) Peter claims that there are still kids who are dying in the world every day (19,000) and even tho we are not walking past them if we aren’t helping them we are basically walking past them. He talks about a kind of altruism called effective altruism - basically altruism that you feel with both the heart and the head. Making sure you feel for what you are doing but also using your head to make sure that it is effective. 

Singer, Peter. TED. “Peter Singer: The why and how of effective altruism.” Youtube, May 20th, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Diuv3XZQXyc&feature=youtu.be

Neural, Cognitive, and evolutionary foundations of human altruism (paper):

This paper looks at altruism from a psychological and neural perspective. It looks at altruism evolutionary origins. Claims that all species’ acts are unified by common psychological and neural mechanisms. This article goes on about how if you look at nature from a Darwinism approach surely it doesn’t make sense for organisms to be altruistic. There are two different models of altruistic behavior that explain the conundrum of altruism. The first is kin selection. I have already written about kin selection a bit reviewing other sources but a quick recap of it is being altruistic to those you share a kinship too (found in chimps and monkeys a lot and other social animals.) Kin selection is thought to be a biological desire to help strengthen the overall groups survival rather than just individual survival. Kin selection is not very helpful at explaining human altruism because humans can be nice/feel a desire to be nice to total strangers. The other model is reciprocal altruism. I have also talked about this kind of altruism. It is behavior that is directed to non-kin. The general idea of reciprocal altruism is helping someone so you will get something back by helping them in a later date (you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours.) This paper explains the different kinds of reciprocal altruism: One is reward expectancy, the expectation you will be rewarded by being altruistic. Serotonin, it has been found that those with higher serotonin are more in favor of cooperation. Care-based altruism. Being altruistic by caring for your offspring or other vulnerable offspring. Alloparenting- is like care-based altruism but it is the enthusiastic care of parents towards infants, even babies that are not related to them. Empathic concern- otherwise known as empathy. This one is also relatively unconfirmed on what biological or psychological reason humans feel empathy towards other humans

Alloparenting is the most likely direct origin of care based altruism. Care based altruism is supported by oxytocinergic limbic structures like the amygdala. Conclusion of the paper: “Altruism is a central organizing principle among group-living mammals, and there are few species for which this is more evident than humans.” Human altruism is found frequently in human social interactions. This author thinks with the increase of interest in altruism that eventually we will be able to get a better understanding of the neural and psychological bases of altruism in humans.

Marsh, Abigail A. “Neural, Cognitive, and Evolutionary Foundations of Human Altruism.” WIREs: Cognitive Science, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 2016, p. 59. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=112128886&site=eds-live.

A Simple and General Explanation for The Evolution of Altruism (paper):

This paper starts off with the puzzle of where altruism fits in the evolutionary theory. (natural selection and survival of the fittest). How can natural selection favor individuals that carry helping traits, over those that carry selfish ones? This paper is meant to provide a fundamental explanation for how altruistic traits evolve. This article pulls on a lot of examples of human behavior such as the public goods game and the prisoner’s dilemma. There is actually an equation for the best results and outcomes for the public goods game. The desire of this paper is to find out how altruistic genotypes are chosen through natural selection over selfish genotypes. The model of the equation can be modified for other situations as well. The problem with this article and equation is it does not factor in environmental variables. This paper does argue that the evolution of altruism is the same for all species. Just like in almost every other source I have looked at, they credit kin selection and reciprocal altruism to be the biggest backing of how altruism evolved. By the end of this article, it accurately defined different terms but did not come up with a conclusion. In fact, in my opinion, the last paper I read was simpler and easier to follow. 

Jeffrey A. Fletcher, and Michael Doebeli. “A Simple and General Explanation for the Evolution of Altruism.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 276, no. 1654, Jan. 2009, p. 13. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=35363018&site=eds-live.

Other notes that I like: 

(Darwin 1859, ch. 6) “Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect which… inevitably causes the death of the insect” Origin of Species. This caused a problem in Darwin’s theory of natural selection because his idea of survival of the fittest would get rid of behavior like this. 

The traditional views of both evolutionary biology and psychology left little room for altruism. (Darwinism and self preservice) 

[turninginasignments]

Finale Draft Project Proposal

. For this project, I have decided to go with the idea of biological altruism. Specifically on how altruism plays in evolution. I am going to specifically be talking about humans but I may be looking at a lot of haplorhine primates as well, as our species is a part of that group as well. The best way I can collect data for this subject would be from documentaries or write up research papers on the subject. Jane Goodall is a good example of someone I should look into as she is an expert in primatology and has dedicated her life to the study. She even “lived” with a group of bonobo chimpanzees to see their everyday life. Making sure I still have my main big point about humans I would be getting into a lot of psychology of the brain. Asking questions like, what part of our brain governs any altruistic behavior, why do some people seem to be born with a true altruistic personality (Gandhi, Mother Teresa, etc) and why are there others without any (psychopaths and sociopaths), solving the evolutionary puzzle of self-preservation why would an individual act under the pressure of self-preservation of putting itself at risk by helping another, does the answer to the previous question answer how it has affected human growth and human societies (both positive and negatively), does it come from primarily in the brain or does it come primarily from society’s culture around us, a big question that I want to know the answer of is how conscious of a decision is being altruistic. Altogether, to answer my question I am going to have to look into biological anthropology, psychology, sociology, and maybe a little bit of philosophy.  A lot of this information is written in a very boring way and no casual college student would be looking into this subject, I hope to write it in a way that is easily digested and I hope to ask some questions that are not asked often (at least for someone with my entry-level knowledge in the subject). 

 If I wanted to conduct my own research on it I think the easiest way would be to go over to the InNout near university mall. There are always a few homeless people who hang out under the cover of some unused storefronts or hang out on the corners with signs asking for money. I could do an observation study and just hang out in my car while counting how many cars drive by compared to how many give money and/or I could talk to the guy I see often who has a dog and ask him to help me out with this assignment and ask him a few questions in a survey type manner. That is the easiest way I can do my own original research. The best secondary research would be like I said earlier documentaries and variously scholarly points of view. I word it like that because I don’t want to limit myself to just scholarly articles but also to be able to look at critical thought out discussions like podcasts, interviews, or just individual posts by an anthropologist/psychologist/sociologist/philosopher.  

While I do research for this project I do not want to be so stuck on my original idea of biological altruism. That is the overarching idea I want to go into this with, but I also want to ask questions that fall into other categories and if I find those more interesting to learn about I wouldn’t want to stop my self from learning about them and changing the direction of my paper. The direction I want to take my paper is learning new things about altruism in humans, specifically its origin. I want to do this by looking into biological altruism but that is because I currently assume it would be the most beneficial field to look into, I will know more as I do my research. 

The reason I find this to be important is that this is about our very being of who we are. I am someone who thinks that knowledge is power. While I was still deciding on what questions I was wanting to ask for this topic one of them as if it matters to know this. I decided not to go into that one because trying to bring in the epistemology of it would be too much for this one paper but also because I already think it does matter. What if by learning how altruism works it causes people to better be altruistic. Even if it doesn’t affect people’s behavior after learning this, the act of learning about has power in it. It gives the mind something to think about that isn’t normally thought about. 

While I am doing the search for my sources I will have to narrow it down. This is a big topic and I do not want to get overwhelmed by too much information. Some good phrases to look up would be; biological altruism, altruism, philosophy of altruism, altruism in human development, altruism in evolution, altruistic gene, altruistic effects, and plenty of others. With this project, I have to make sure not to let my curiosity get the better of me. My biggest concern for this project and biggest curiosity are the same, which is more the philosophical question of why does studying things matter if it matters at all. I just defended why it does up above but I don’t know if I truly think that. I tend to become a little nihilistic to a production fault, where I will wonder if something has meaning to the point that even if it does have meaning I completely lose it by overthinking it. I love doing that it is some of my favorite philosophical questions to ask but for the sake of this project, I feel like it would be counterproductive and way too long for the purpose of what I am trying to accomplish by looking into altruism. Outside of my own possible faults, I can see this being a project that will require some willpower to stay open-minded. I am not yet knowledgeable on this subject so I want to remain open-minded where I can change directions if needed but not so open-minded that I chase small inconsequential tidbits that are not very helpful towards my project. Another difficulty that I am worried I will encounter is that if there is not enough concrete information on biological altruism that I will be switching over to the philosophy of altruism. When going into philosophy there are so many people with so many different ideas that can possibly go against each other and it can be hard to pinpoint what is more thought out compared to other philosophers.  

As a current undergrad college student, there are many people who know more about this subject than me, but I believe that I will do this project justice and put in the proper work that is required. Because I am just an undergrad I do not hold any official titles, that is why I like to call my self an anthropologist or philosophy enthusiast. I am knowledgable about these subjects more than the average person just by being self taught. Doing this paper will just be another way that I gain even more experience in these subjects, while also I get to use my current experience to make sure the finale paper is one that is of high quality that I would be proud to have others read it. 

In my experience as an undergrad student, I have found that the topic of altruism is not generally discussed in the general public. Most people recognize the concept of it but not the actual study of it. People who would generally read my paper would be people who have already found an interest in this subject but not someone who already has studied this for a while. While I write this paper the audience I will wish to direct it to would be a board of scholars. I want to learn how to write properly for higher educated groups as practice for me to one day write my own thesis papers for grad school. My project is important not just to me but to others as well. If I was to pretend this was my actual thesis paper for grad school I would have to convince that is it worth putting money and time into. I would say that this project is a study of a major human characteristic and that we should know where it comes from and what bigger purpose does it serve for societies. 

The reason I picked this topic is that it interests me. I recognize that it is a larger topic but I am excited to dive into the research of it as I have thought on it for a while but have never done official research on it. I want to be able to write something completely new to me and be able to able to become a better critical thinker by the end of this. I also hope that anyone who reads my paper will be able to critically think about it and learn something new or at least be able to think about the subject from a different perspective.