A Message from a Guildie

In some environments, yes. But we could place dogs in Africa then see them multiply if they can survive long enough. I highly doubt that dogs have reached their carrying capacity if they're given the same amount of space as the Africans enjoy.

May I quote the website originally mentioned:

* To provide children with "Kind News," a humane education program encouraging kindness to animals, respect for natural habitats, good citizenship, and peaceful conflict resolution.
* Feed and medicate homeless dogs living on beaches throughout Puerto Rico.
* Offer clinics providing fee or low cost spay/neuter services. Provide rescue and rehabilitation services for abused and adaptable animals.
* Advocate shelter adoptions and work to eliminate puppy mills.
* Promote responsible pet ownership.

http://www.charitybuzz.com/area.do?id=897
In reality, all it does is build shelters, advocate adoptions, and feed dogs. We already established that only feeding the dogs will not do much, and neither will building shelters. Thus, really the only thing I see from that list that helps is setting up the dogs for adoption, but I highly doubt ALL the dogs can be adopted by someone, especially not in a time of economic crisis.

Hypothetically, you could start a breed on a plot of land that is free of predation but then the ones left in Puerto Rico will once again reproduce massively (as it would be free of competition), and soon enough, nothing will be solved as the dogs in Puerto Rico once again reach their carrying capacity. Then you'll see such organizations popping up again telling people to help these dogs from being "starved, diseased, and murdered".

Personally, I like to look ahead into the future and see what could happen for one or some of us. If I die, so be it, history wouldn't care. But usually there would be interest in the neighbor since it's easy to collude and work together.

Eh, you're interested in your neighbor to engage in illegal activities? I see...

Probably Harrisonized, probably. I would argue that the survival instinct of society is a lot stronger, and society is what most social organisms serve first. In the events preceding the Civil War, the Union wanted to give African-Americans equal rights that nearly every other male enjoyed (sorry women, your time to shine with lady liberty came much later), and they felt that it was unjust of the Confederation to just walk away and keep on practicing slavery. (I personally didn't like how the Union didn't honor the secession clause in the Amendments) I don't know about you, Harrisonized, but some of the soldiers who fought the war put their society's values before their lives. They fought because they believed the future would be a much better place if their side won the war.

Then let's take a look at recent events. Those 9/11 hijackers probably didn't agree to hijack the planes to survive >_> They did it partly because of their religious background, and partly because America is "The Great Satan" or something to that effect. This keeps going on in the Middle East because one society (or in some cases a religious faction) believes they are better than the other. Darwinian's survival of the fittest creature just became survival of the best society/ideology.

Or you could try advocating peace. I'm pretty sure that not everyone goes to war with the intention of dying. Why would someone go die for a cause should they not live to see the effects of their actions? People who go to war either choose to based on some sense of "patriotism" in which they felt obligated, or they did not live adequate enough lives to do anything but serve in that field, or they decided that the chances of them dying were not enough to consider a gamble. Whatever the reason, they realized that they would either live on a winning side or losing side, and losing side meant a worse living condition or death.

There must be a greater intention at play, and as you mentioned, it's dying for a specific cause such as abolishing slavery or religion. For a cause to trump individual need for survival must mean that human cognitive development is a retrograde.