[Samw]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

Well, allow me to explain a bit:

Territoriality, as a behavior can be described as a passive (marking), or active (driving other competitors out) behavior to sustain control of an area or resource. It's the process by which an individual helps protect its survival by controlling competition for resources. Looking at it this way, it's not hard to make a leap of logic and to extend behaviors such as hoarding food and driving competitors out to wanting more then one needs at any given time.

You have to seperate greed from vanity. The two are completely different and juxtaposing them is a mistake. To me, vanity is a consequential behavior resulting from the need to attract mates (Read: sexual instinct). My thinking there is that just as the bowerbird with the largest bower or the peacock with the most extensive tail attracts the most females, humans with the nicest BMW, prettiest attire, largest bank account, etc, attract the most mates. But because we are able to reason, we are able to extend this behavior into a social ritual that transcends sexual instinct and forms its own unique attribute: ambition. Hope that helps.

The only thing we disagree on here is the definition of the word greed. I don't equate greed to survival. By defnition, the behavior of acquiring more than what one NEEDS means that it is not for survival. Therefore, doing something greedy is not the same as doing something for survival. An animal acquiring as much territory as it can is simply increasing its odds of survival and reproduction. Thus the animal is not being greedy at all.