Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson sounding a bit like cyber-utopian Clay Shirky: “groups of cooperators can out-compete groups of non-cooperators, thereby ensuring that their genes — including the ones that predispose them to cooperation — are handed down to future generations.” Its not kin but community that drives altruism–online and on the savannah.
Or so they say…
I seem to recall this idea from Prince Kropotkin.