Edwin Rutsch
Steven Pinker talks about empathy being one of the better angels that is reducing violence.
From Book: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
C-span
http://c-spanvideo.org/program/302562-1&start=2370
RSA
http://youtube.com/watch?v=GgNsmW_bAKI
Source
What Pinker seems to not understand is that in today's world, empathy, because it is extended to everyone, is MALADAPTIVE. Which means that people who lack empathy, will outbreed the ones who do. When you are empathetic to your tribe, you increase your inclusive fitness, but when you are empathetic to cats, Somalis or whoever else, you are squandering resources in an evolutionary sense. So the future won't be that emphathetic.
And I have two lines of evidence. The most altruistic people on the planet in the 2nd half of the 20th century have been by far Western whites. In 1950, whites comprised 30% of the population, while today whites are slightly above 10% of the population. Secondly, there's the evidence shown by Putnam's study on diversity, which shows that people, while not killing each other, STOP caring about their society, including members of their own group.
Ok, you can point out to me another group of people who instituted institutions that discriminate against their own people(e.g. affirmative action) or who take hordes of asylum seekers from all around the world or who have statues banning discrimination and that consider even talking about their dwindling influence to be a faux pas. I can go on with the list.
lol@even Israel. Israelis are altruistic too. Israel would be a far nicer country without it. And Jews are fairly white/Westerner, even though they cluster out.
Considering that virtually 100% of the world refugee population is non-Western, the fact that 30% of them don't live in the parts of the world where they originate from is a sign of altruism.