If you’ve read his fiction, you’ll probably be aware that Peter Watts doesn’t hold to the romantic notions that pervade around the idea of human altruism. He gets asked about it a lot, apparently, and so Watts decided to explain his reductionist position on human altruism publicly. Warning – unless you have a healthy cynicism about your own species, you’re not going to like what he has to say. Which leads me to believe he’s probably correct.