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How to make other people pay for your stuff

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  1. #76
    Most people don't risk their lives to save a random person drowning, they drown and there is no news story. I think this is important. You're implying every time someone is in danger some hero puts there life on the line to stop a paper cut happening.

    Yes giving money to help poverty in Africa is selfish because you are doing it because you get a buzz out of feeling you are helping. Like you are part of something bigger etc.
    Last edited by Savy; 11-07-2018 at 07:02 PM.
  2. #77
    Quote Originally Posted by Savy View Post
    Most people don't risk their lives to save a random person drowning, they drown and there is no news story. I think this is important. You're implying every time someone is in danger some hero puts there life on the line to stop a paper cut happening.

    Yes giving money to help poverty in Africa is selfish because you are doing it because you get a buzz out of feeling you are helping. Like you are part of something bigger etc.

    We can argue all night about it, and I'm somewhat in agreement with you to a point. There's some interesting papers out where they try to apply mathematical models to bees and ants and whatnot to show it's genetically advantageous, but they're difficult to extrapolate from to non-social-insect types. Things get a lot more complex when you're dealing with humans, e.g.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30375455



    It's also debatable whether such a thing as 'pure' altruism even exists; and I think it's fair to say that the experts haven't figured it out either. Plenty of theories out there for anyone who wants to dig deeper.

    https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-altruism-2794828
  3. #78
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    The gain to you here is so unlikely to be realized.
    No. The gain I get is immediately realized, because the gain is my sense of being a "good" person who "does the right thing." My reasons for wanting to be good or do the right thing don't need to be remotely rational. I offered a case in which those arguments were rational-ish, but you showed how they're not. That's fine. What matters is that I chose to do it for my own reasons, not that those reasons were factually accurate.

    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    It's also a bit unrealistic to think that your own behavior has such a great influence on society as a whole [...]
    *shrug* Yes and no. IDK what affect I have on the greater society as a whole, but ... butterfly affect ... I constantly interact with society as a part of it... I feel like this could be a whole other conversation.

    It's not relevant, though.
    It is not relevant whether or not what I'm thinking has any correlation to reality, only that my choices are rooted in what I want.


    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    That's not really a reasonable expectation though is it? How is he supposed to help you, and moreover, why help you over someone else he might already be helping? Is he even aware that you need help if you haven't asked for it? And if so, is he in a position to help? What should he be doing, sending you money over the internet?
    It's your argument, and I agree it's not reasonable.
    He's supposed to help me by not thinking about what is in his own best interests, the selfish prick.
    If he wasn't being so damn selfish by ignoring me, then he'd be well aware.
    I bet he knows people who can help. So long as they're not selfish pricks, too, I'll be saved!
    That's not a bad start, but right now, I just need someone to wipe my ass. It's getting itchy, you selfish pricks. Don't you see I'm uncomfortable, here?

    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    For example, if someone asks you how fluid dynamics works and you answer, why are you doing that?
    You're joking, right?
    Give me an excuse to talk about physics.
    I dare you.
    I'll bump that physics monkey thread faster than you can meme, punk.
    Get me started.
    Just get me started!
    No, scratch that. I'm already thinking about how awesome non-Newtonian fluids are and how shampoo and liquid hand soap are specifically formulated to be runny when you squeeze them out, but then firmer when on your hand, so they don't run onto the floor. Ever seen foaming soap in a public restroom? That's why it's foamy. So they don't have to clean up as much mess from the soap that slides right off your hand.

    ...
    and you think I'm not smiling from ear to ear right now, and that's not a very selfish joy?
    I thought you were, like, a people-knower science guy or something?

    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    We're not ignoring it, we're pointing out it's kind of a prop that you're using to change the nature of the argument (presumably unconsciously) into one about the normal vs. MMM definition of a word.
    I'm really not, though. I'm pointing out that what you say it means can't be what it means, because it makes no sense whatsoever. It's a perfectly absurd proposition. I'm not trying to change the definition, really. That's futile. I'm saying the current definition is nonsense.

    I'm saying that being selfish is inseparable from being a self.
    I'm saying that calling someone whom does something you don't like selfish is completely missing the point of whatever you don't like, 'cause all the other people who do things you do like are also being selfish.

    It's not a prop I'm injecting. It's the manipulative nature of the accusation coupled with the hypocrisy of it all inherent to the usage that I'm shining a light on.

    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    It might help to give an example of what you mean by 'virtue signalling' here. Do you mean if I help an old lady across the street I'm really being selfish because I want to virtue signal that I'm a nice person? I think of virtue signalling as more in line with hypocrisy, where a person says one thing but acts in the opposite way.
    I mean if you call someone selfish, you're virtue signalling that you're better than them because they are selfish and you, presumably, are not. Manipulation and hypocrisy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    If I'm actually being nice and sacrificing my time for someone else's benefit, it's a bit cynical to view that as 'selfish' imo.
    So... you want to pretend you do things for other reasons because it makes you feel better about the things you do...?
    and that's... not... selfish?
    and I'm the one injecting some prop into the conversation?
    Last edited by MadMojoMonkey; 11-07-2018 at 07:49 PM.
  4. #79
    CoccoBill's Avatar
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    I think there's a long way to go from there being no pure altruism (which I agree might be true) to all altruism having all or mostly selfish motives. What I mean is that while I can accept that maybe some selfish motivator can be found within all actions, I'm not at all sure those are the driving or only motivators in all cases.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  5. #80
    Two friends are in the Army together, in combat. One guy throws himself on a grenade to save his friend. He makes a choice to sacrifice himself so his friend will live, even though it means he will die. He would have lived and his friend died if he hadn't done it. They both had a wife and 2.7 children at home, nice cars, and good jobs.

    Selfish cunt.
  6. #81
    He did it for his ego, obviously. He just wants to be a hero.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  7. #82
    Natural selection doesn't favour heroes who die. Otherwise everyone would do it.
  8. #83
    MadMojoMonkey's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    Two friends are in the Army together, in combat. One guy throws himself on a grenade to save his friend. He makes a choice to sacrifice himself so his friend will live, even though it means he will die. He would have lived and his friend died if he hadn't done it. They both had a wife and 2.7 children at home, nice cars, and good jobs.

    Selfish cunt.
    I agree it was selfish, but why is he a cunt?

    Is it cause he gave his life to save someone who isn't you?
  9. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    Natural selection doesn't favour heroes who die. Otherwise everyone would do it.
    Irrelevant. Reality doesn't matter; perception matters.
  10. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by CoccoBill View Post
    I think there's a long way to go from there being no pure altruism (which I agree might be true) to all altruism having all or mostly selfish motives. What I mean is that while I can accept that maybe some selfish motivator can be found within all actions, I'm not at all sure those are the driving or only motivators in all cases.
    Can you elaborate on this?
    I like that you're throwing a wrench into my assumption that the presence of selfish reasoning must be the paramount criteria.
  11. #86
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    Irrelevant. Reality doesn't matter; perception matters.
    You've got it backwards.

    Ultimately, evolution only cares about your actions, not what your perceptions or motivations are.

    e.g., a schizophrenic hears the neighbor's dog telling him all mailmen must die. He goes on a mailman-killing spree then turns the gun on himself. He has no chance to reproduce. Evolutionary theory doesn't care about the details of his hallucination, or whether it was rational or not. It cares that he's dead and can't reproduce.

    Same thing for the soldier. He's also dead and can't reproduce any more. To evolution it's the same outcome for both.
  12. #87
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    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    Can you elaborate on this?
    I like that you're throwing a wrench into my assumption that the presence of selfish reasoning must be the paramount criteria.
    Well why would they be? While it's tempting to think there's exactly one explanation to every action or decision, I doubt that's the case. To say that all our actions are selfish means it's the driving force behind all our actions. Why would that be the case? If I have multiple motives to do something, why does it have to be the selfishness that trumps all other motives and determines how I act? What is this assumption based on? I need proof to back that claim up, and I think we're firmly into no-free-will territory if we're not consciously able to override our selfish desires. What I think is that there are at least 2 completely different and separate decision processes, the conscious and the unconscious one.

    The unconscious one can be called intuition or whatever, but that's the one that's based on emotions, feelings and urges, and no doubt selfish urges play a huge part in that. I'm willing to concede those decisions are always on some level selfish.

    The conscious ones are the ones where we use our cognitive functions to come to a decision. Surely most of us at least some of the time try to "be" unselfish, and strive for what's "right". For these decisions to also be selfish, it would require us to either be fooling ourselves into thinking we based the decision on unselfish reasons, or for others reasons be incapable of overriding our selfish urges. I'm not convinced that both or even either of them is true all of the time for all people, which would be necessary if all our actions were selfish.
    Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit.

  13. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
    You've got it backwards.

    Ultimately, evolution only cares about your actions, not what your perceptions or motivations are.

    e.g., a schizophrenic hears the neighbor's dog telling him all mailmen must die. He goes on a mailman-killing spree then turns the gun on himself. He has no chance to reproduce. Evolutionary theory doesn't care about the details of his hallucination, or whether it was rational or not. It cares that he's dead and can't reproduce.

    Same thing for the soldier. He's also dead and can't reproduce any more. To evolution it's the same outcome for both.
    I guess if evolution was a mind making choices, then anything in this post would be relevant to a conversation about whether or not evolution was selfish, but since evolution isn't a mind making choices, and this isn't a conversation about whether evolution is selfish, then it's a non-sequitur.

    Nothing you said prevents any of the participants form already being parents, BTW.


    A) Evolution is not a conscious or directed mechanism, it's random changes happening over time.
    B) Evolution doesn't have any problems with doing things terribly inefficiently. Killing off 99% of all potential offspring as a "normal" course of action isn't even uncommon in life's many, varied reproductive systems.
    C) Even if evolution was about creating a perfectly streamlined life form, with no inefficiencies in the genome (it's definitely not about that), we are not currently at some "end-state" of evolution.
  14. #89
    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    I guess if evolution was a mind making choices, then anything in this post would be relevant to a conversation about whether or not evolution was selfish, but since evolution isn't a mind making choices, and this isn't a conversation about whether evolution is selfish, then it's a non-sequitur..
    Of course it's not a mind making choices, but it is making choices in effect. It's not just a fluke that most species are generally pretty good at staying alive and reproducing.


    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    Nothing you said prevents any of the participants form already being parents, BTW.
    Being dead definitely prevents one from having more kids though. It also makes it harder to look after whichever kids you already have.


    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    A) Evolution is not a conscious or directed mechanism, it's random changes happening over time.
    No-one is ascribing sentience to evolution. I think we're all a bit more sophisticated thinkers than that here.

    The changes are only random at the time a mutation occurs. Whether or not any changes carry on to the next generation definitely has a non-random element to it.




    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    B) Evolution doesn't have any problems with doing things terribly inefficiently. Killing off 99% of all potential offspring as a "normal" course of action isn't even uncommon in life's many, varied reproductive systems.
    You're kind of hurting your own argument here. The best explanation for why people would be selfish is evolution. If you're saying evolution doesn't affect how people behave, then why can't they do things that aren't selfish?



    Quote Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey View Post
    C) Even if evolution was about creating a perfectly streamlined life form, with no inefficiencies in the genome (it's definitely not about that), we are not currently at some "end-state" of evolution.
    No such thing even exists. But evolution has been going on for eons and certainly has an impact. It's not just some chaotic system acting willy-nilly.


    Overall, I think where your argument falls down is in its circularity. You seem to say that every action a person takes is generated by their self, therefore selfishness motivates every action. I think you're conflating selfishness with the will here. Certainly every action a person undertakes is internally-generated. It doesn't follow from that that it must be done to fulfil some inner desire of that person.

    How does one disprove this hypothesis of yours I wonder? It seems to account for everything and explain nothing. Why are we this way? And what kind of behaviour could a person exhibit that you would say 'well that was a choice clearly more in someone else's best interests and not their own, therefore it wasn't selfish'?
    Last edited by Poopadoop; 11-08-2018 at 03:59 PM.
  15. #90
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    At the end of Independence Day, when Randy Quaid flies straight into the mothership because he was out of missiles and kills himself in the process while taking the bitch out, was that a selfish move on his part?

    *Edit: It's a '96 movie, so fuck spoilers. You had more than 20 years to watch it.
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