Theories of a multiverse and nonlocality may go some way towards countering the anthropic principle, but what about down here on Earth? The current rush towards social(ist?) media presupposes that we are biased towards cooperating with one another more and more, a presupposition that certainly feels warm and cosy and toasty during these cold, dark days, and it is certainly how I would like to feel about myself...but is it really true?
However many Twitter followers, Facebook friends or other virtual pals we acquire (and anyway, does this process just make us into postmodern incarnations of the Victorian fossil or plant collector?), I would like to see some clear indicator that this really translates into active compassion for, and interest in others. Or will we, as ever, just buy birthday and Christmas presents for our nuclear families and, if we're "lucky", gorge ourselves once again in the company of the same real-world friends and relations that we were with last year and the year before that?
In short, what is our true bias, the true principle governing our behaviour, an "I'm All Right Jack" Darwinism or an "all things for all men" Kropotkinism? As long as we feel schadenfreude and appetite and envy, are we - honestly now - getting to know and understand one another better, despite plenty of imaginative advice and some undoubtedly wonderful first steps in that direction?
Mass of contradictions that we are, I guess many of us (at least those of us who make no claim - nor have any claim made on our behalf - for sainthood) play out this eternal paradox all day every day, flitting between the light and shade, between compassion and ego. The human condition?
"I practiced all my sainthood, I gave to one and all
But the rumours of my virtue, they moved her not at all
I changed my style to silver, changed my clothes to black
And where I would surrender, now I would attack" - Leonard Cohen