Does altruism exist?

Tinkerpeach said:
Time is irrelevant.

If you have time to make a decision you are still making it based on what you want.
Click to expand...

Again, you are displaying a lack of life experience. Time is very relevant in decision-making. If there is no time to consider, then people will react by instinct. That instinct can be training, personality, or a combination of both.

If a person has time to consider the consequences, then, yes, they might choose the selfish option. Not always.

What was the selfishness in then-Lt. j.g. Lassen's actions in Vietnam? Do you think he was medal-hunting? Just operant conditioning like a meat robot?

https://www.defense.gov/News/Featur...-honor-monday-navy-cmdr-clyde-everett-lassen/
 
Doc Dutch said:
Again, you are displaying a lack of life experience. Time is very relevant in decision-making. If there is no time to consider, then people will react by instinct. That instinct can be training, personality, or a combination of both.

If a person has time to consider the consequences, then, yes, they might choose the selfish option. Not always.

What was the selfishness in then-Lt. j.g. Lassen's actions in Vietnam? Do you think he was medal-hunting? Just operant conditioning like a meat robot?

https://www.defense.gov/News/Featur...-honor-monday-navy-cmdr-clyde-everett-lassen/
Click to expand...

Humans have no instinct, everything is learned behavior
 
Tinkerpeach said:
And how did those subatomic particles come into existence without a supernatural force so by your very own definition selfishness has to exist.

Unless you can show us how your particles just randomly appeared out of nothing
Click to expand...

It is impossible to understand the source of the particles.
The human mind cannot perceive the ultimate beginning.

No matter where / when we believe something started, the question always remains,
"Well, what was before that?"

Forward infinity is easy--more of the same shit forever.
Backward infinity is unimaginable.
 
Yakuda said:
I agree. In my very first post on this thread I said that in very large measure humans act selfishly but it's not absolute as the OP seems to suggest. Also self-interest isnt by itself selfish. There can be great benefits that can be realized through self interest.
Click to expand...

Self-interest is part of survival. However, as this thread has discussed, human beings aren't always selfish and can be selfless. It varies.

To make this political: Which party is more supportive of individual selfishness and which party is pushing altruism?
 
Tinkerpeach said:
It is an observation I made, I never claimed there was a point to it.

I made the thread to discuss this observation for those interested in the topic and this does happen to be a discussion forum so conclusions are not necessarily required.

Hopefully that answers your question
Click to expand...

Well it finally answers it at least. As to your interpretation of what you observe it's mostly true but not absolute as you appear to suggest. You made the same error by suggesting my question was a search for a conclusion. It was not. However the conclusion seems to be you just wanted something to talk about. Very selfish.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
It is impossible to understand the source of the particles.
The human mind cannot perceive the ultimate beginning.

No matter where / when we believe something started, the question always remains,
"Well, what was before that?"

Forward infinity is easy--more of the same shit forever.
Backward infinity is unimaginable.
Click to expand...

Yes but that does not change the fact that they had to come from somewhere.

Until science can explain that you cannot claim that the supernatural doesn’t exist therefore you cannot claim that selfishness doesn’t exist
 
Tinkerpeach said:
It does not.

Every action taken by a human is done out of selfishness.

If a soldier jumps on a grenade to save his platoon he is not doing it for them but for himself.

In the soldiers mind the thing he desires most in that moment is to save his platoon so his action is driven by that desire to get what HE wants.

Every human being on the planet who is capable of rational thought makes every decision based on selfishness.
Click to expand...

let me guess......when you went through the creation lines before you were born, you got in to the 'cynicism' line 4 times.

you must have led a very hard, frustrating, and unsatisfying life to come to such a cynical conclusion about humanity and human nature.........i'm sorry your parents didn't love you enough
 
Doc Dutch said:
Self-interest is part of survival. However, as this thread has discussed, human beings aren't always selfish and can be selfless. It varies.

To make this political: Which party is more supportive of individual selfishness and which party is pushing altruism?
Click to expand...

As I said survival is a result of self-interest not the cause. Survival is the product.

You're right the tranny freaks who don't get what they want shoot up christian schools and kill children. And the others who like to fuck for fun and then want to kill babies for purely altruistic purposes right? You're a brain dead shit stain
 
Let me see if I can clarify my point

If a man jumps on a grenade to save others that is indeed a selfless act as he has sacrificed himself for others.

The decision to do that however was made after he analyzed the situation and decided that at that moment what He wanted was to save others.

He made the decision because it is what he wanted over the other options.

So we are not discussing the results of actions but the reasoning behind the thought process that led to the man’s decision
 
Yakuda said:
As I said survival is a result of self-interest not the cause. Survival is the product.

You're right the tranny freaks who don't get what they want shoot up christian schools and kill children. And the others who like to fuck for fun and then want to kill babies for purely altruistic purposes right? You're a brain dead shit stain
Click to expand...

Do you think hate is genetic or is it learned behavior?
 
Tinkerpeach said:
Let me see if I can clarify my point

If a man jumps on a grenade to save others that is indeed a selfless act as he has sacrificed himself for others.

The decision to do that however was made after he analyzed the situation and decided that at that moment what He wanted was to save others.

He made the decision because it is what he wanted over the other options.

So we are not discussing the results of actions but the reasoning behind the thought process that led to the man’s decision
Click to expand...

You really think a person can analyze a situation in a second? If I pull the pin on a grenade, release the spoon then toss it into the middle of your birthday cake, how many seconds do you have to analyze, assess and react?
 
Tinkerpeach said:
Yes but that does not change the fact that they had to come from somewhere.

Until science can explain that you cannot claim that the supernatural doesn’t exist therefore you cannot claim that selfishness doesn’t exist
Click to expand...

Even if we were able to stipulate as FACT that the supernatural exists,
that only suggests that PERHAPS it applies itself to our behavior as well.

I made my original statement without explaining that it's my personal assumption, but not something I can prove or know for certain.
If behavior operates like everything else that's natural, neither altruism nor selfishness exists.
If something we cannot understand, or in my case, even imagine, influences that paradigm, that at least has the possibility to change everything.
That much, I will concede.
 
Tinkerpeach said:
Let me see if I can clarify my point

If a man jumps on a grenade to save others that is indeed a selfless act as he has sacrificed himself for others.

The decision to do that however was made after he analyzed the situation and decided that at that moment what He wanted was to save others.

He made the decision because it is what he wanted over the other options.

So we are not discussing the results of actions but the reasoning behind the thought process that led to the man’s decision
Click to expand...

back to opinions. you have no idea what he was thinking, or even if he was thinking

we have reflexes. we don't think when we do many things. you have not been able to prove that he didn't jump on that grenade out of a reflex
 
Tinkerpeach said:
It does not.

Every action taken by a human is done out of selfishness.

If a soldier jumps on a grenade to save his platoon he is not doing it for them but for himself.

In the soldiers mind the thing he desires most in that moment is to save his platoon so his action is driven by that desire to get what HE wants.

Every human being on the planet who is capable of rational thought makes every decision based on selfishness.
Click to expand...

If the soldier desires to save his platoon, can't that be defined as altruistic? What he wants is to save fellow humans? There is nothing contradictory about sacrificing yourself to save others while also getting what you want.

The soldier who chooses not to jump on the grenade is also getting what he wants but does nothing to help others.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top