"Altruism" is Base Newspeak

[DBTrek]

I’m less impressed with the rhetorical demagoguery used to explain all actions as selfish.

• Step 1 - Define every action as something the actor “wants to do”.
  Step 2 - Define any action one wants to do as “selfish”.
  Step 3 - All actions = selfish.

If one can’t see the trickery at play here, then I suppose it’s because they don’t want to.

[K@th]

• Step 1 - Define every action as something the actor “wants to do”.

It's not about wanting to do a specific action; it's more of making a choice that gets you closest to your desired outcomes.

I'm guessing you would die protecting your family if you had to; it's not about wanting to die, though. If your dying means they get to live, then you prefer death, because living without them, knowing you could have done something, is less preferable.

But it's all just philosophical. It has no practical application, AFAIK.

[Speaker to Animals]

Altruism is literally a heritable trait. It's a genetic adaptation.

[GloryofGreece]

Depends on what your values are and what brings meaning to your life. Without some degree of selfish behavior no one would be alive taken to the extreme,but yeah even in everyday life you still function to one degree or another in a "selfish" way but argument is to what degree and when etc.?

I see it as a distinction without a meaningful difference. It doesn't change the way I judge people. Sister Theresa is no less noble a person because I believe she was doing what she absolutely wanted to be doing.

The word selfish comes with an undeserved negative stigma attached, IMO.

Do you believe in evil?

[DBTrek]

That’s where it starts to go off the rails, isn’t it? When people’s desired outcomes may involve very undesirable outcomes for themselves, it’s quite a stretch to still claim a selfish motivation.

“I didn’t want to see Nazis kill Jews, so I hid them in my basement until the gestapo caught us all and sent us to Auschwitz”

“You selfish motherfucker!”



We’re asked to accept acts of extreme selflessness as “selfish” simply because the actor preferred to prevent disaster for someone else?

Not just bullshit, but obvious bullshit.
Word trickery, that’s all that is going on here.

[GloryofGreece]

Altruism is literally a heritable trait. It's a genetic adaptation.

What is your thoughts on epigenitics?

[Fife]

I’m less impressed with the rhetorical demagoguery used to explain all actions as selfish.

• Step 1 - Define every action as something the actor “wants to do”.
  Step 2 - Define any action one wants to do as “selfish”.
  Step 3 - All actions = selfish.

If one can’t see the trickery at play here, then I suppose it’s because they don’t want to.

Seriously, who said all actions = selfish?


"Altruism" doesn't have a monopoly on charity, goodwill, sacrifice, Christ's teachings, or much of anything else other than what the tax man uses to enslave your ass.

In fact, the concept of "altruism" is a pointy-headed intellectual construct, abstract from reality and human action.

Grow up.

[DBTrek]

The guy without the argument who conflates altruism with government enslavement and roads with disaster probably needs to grow up.

That’s some angsty teenage Alex Jones shit right there.

[Speaker to Animals]

Your problem, Fife, is with biology and genetics. Altruism is even seen in animals in the form of reciprocal altruism.

[Fife]

Your problem, Fife, is with biology and genetics. Altruism is even seen in animals in the form of reciprocal altruism.

I expect that we are on the same page with regard to biology and genetics.

What you call "altruism" is made-up modern Newspeak nonsense.

Think about what St. Augustine, just for example, considered the virtues that we inherit from our ancestors and pass on to our children. Top-down 19th century French revolutionary "altruism" was not what he was talking about; that's just some pie-in-the-sky Jacobin dribble you are letting into your brain, man.