Selfishness and Altruism are the same thing

Everyone would like to think they are brave and selfless but everyone always has someone else who perceived themselves to be better than them and consider them selfish. Even those who consider themselves selfish have a certain degree of pride that makes them feel like they are doing the right thing which in essence… is altruism.

But what do you consider selfish? Let’s say there exists a group of people that do not exhibit altruism in your definition of the word. They lie and steal and kill each other for what you perceive as petty things. But why? If they do not possess the capability to be altruistic, then obviously they are promoting better quality of life by being selfish because if one person from that group is selfish, is he really worth dying for? So you see, what you may perceieve as subjective terms, aren’t really subjective. All of life works together, even though we may exterminate other life forms. It is to promote the best genes. Every single thing every life form does is for the promotion of better genes.

So we take genocide of the armenians for instance. The people who committed that atrocity are selfish, in my eyes. But they are also altruistic, as they themselves are promoting the best genes. It doesn’t matter who wins, because it’s not about pride. The truth is the objective and so someone who is perceived as selfish will really only do the bidding of the altruistic.

Now, it doesn’t have to be so chaotic. What we can all do is just stop being so fucking paranoid of each other. And this (the internet) is a good way to do that. We need to learn how to respect each other’s weaknesses and strengths, as they are the same thing. Life just wants to live and promote the best quality of life, so either with war, selfishness, altruism or just plain old understanding of each other, that’s what’s gonna happen. So there is no reason to think that understanding each other and respecting each other will make any difference in the quest for… understanding each other which means promoting the best genes.

Every human action is selfish. Selfishness is the motivation of survival.

Which is altruistic.

no one has any thoughts about this?

This thread discussed the topic at length.
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Personally, I think you are mistaking Spencerism for evolution, which is a mistake.

What is spencerism? You people seem to like to label anything you see that reads as familiar when you don’t actually understand the meaning behind what you hear or read. I’m not a 'spencerist" or whatever the hell you think I am.

Obviously, life will do whatever it takes to survive. Be it killing other life forms or helping other life forms. Life obviously involves evolution which involves the concepts of altruism and selfishness, both of which are relative terms. All animals are altruistic and selfish at the same time. It really depends on your flavor of generalization. I gave you a perfectly valid example of why “selfish” people are actually just doing the bidding of the altruistic. Life wants the best genes, and it wants to know the truth.

Human beings are the embodiment of the highest evolved adaptation to the objective truth. Human beings are NOT ‘just that way’ just because of certain conditions, they are human beings because their bodies adapted to the need to know more truth. If you take a look at the human body, you will see it is one of the weakest and slowest bodies in the animal kingdom, relative to size. Think what would happen if human beings developed the strength and speed of bears… there would not be much room for the evolution of consciousness, we would just use the strength to our advantage, which would eventually lead to our demise, because we would not have a need to develop the level of compassion and understanding we are capable of and thus the earth would swallow us and our dependence on our advantages whole. So you see, the ‘truth’ chopped us down to size to make us realize that having an advantage is truthfully having a disadvantage. If we have an advantage, it’s really dependent on the earth to make it so. So it’s really a disadvantage as we are slaves to the earth in the first place.

It’s really a simple moral philosophy. What comes around goes around. Take advantage of someone else, and someone else will take advantage of you. You see this is why we have cages for animals in zoos. Their superior physicality, especially bears and tigers and such, is an advantage over us. But with our higher evolved consciousness we are able to shape the world that has shaped us, so we can tame these animals. The reason that these animals have been tamed before is because all animals want to adapt to the truth, which the humans have been the most successful at. Many animals can recognize that and that’s why we have lovable canine companions. Of course, reptiles are another story. However they can feel emotion too but it’s nowhere near the mammilian capacity for emotion. But they too want truth, and while a reptile may appear to just ‘take advantage’ of it’s hypothetical human owner, it is still ‘adapting’ to the truth that the human body and mind reflects… it needs food to continue existing.

Even aliens with self-awareness will look very much like human beings. They will need to stand upright as the 4 legged versions of life are at an advantage. The head needs to be on top of a verticle body, else the earth is pulling the body down towards the ground therefore brain does not have full ‘control’ over it’s body thus preventing further development of consciousness, unless it of course the life form evolves bipedial movement. So, we obviously have the understanding that in order for an alien being to be as intelligent as us, they would have to be at least bipedal creatures. Now for 10 fingers and 10 toes… if we had anymore than that our grip strength and tool making possibilities would be limited. Our hands are the stripped, bare bone need for manipulation of our world, the same with our feet for balance. So obviously, our reliance on balance with the earth’s gravity to evolve the consciousness level to be self-aware requires that our bodies be stripped down to an unadvantageous state of being. Anymore than what we have physically would be a detriment. So the aliens are going to have ‘human’ bodies, and will probably have cro-magnon looking facial features with slightly larger cranial size (because if they come here they’re going to be smarter than we are).

All animals want the same things humans have - self-awareness. That’s why they exist. The human body is the only module that has been able to find the balance between physical advantage and mental advantage to achieve self-awareness. However, we aren’t quite in the middle where we should be yet. We’ll get there eventually.

So altruism and selfishness are the same thing, because life just wants to adapt to the truth, which means it wants better genes. So anything you percieve as selfish is only doing it for the betterment of all of life itself - the truth - to continue existing.

You can ONLY do what you think is the right thing to do.

You might think this is new, but it isn’t. Labels function because they help identify the thing.

Your though processes resemble those of Spencer and also share the same fallacies. Teleology (A and B), and survival of the fittest, I could go on, but those two will serve as viable starting points.

Ok, I don’t really give a flying crap about your labels again, sorry. And this is exaclty why. No one is ever the label you want to put on them, especially in this case. I did not say every animal will eventually evolve into human beings (on their own). I said the purpose of life, which includes evolution, is to adapt to the objective truth. That doesn’t mean that all life forms will eventually evolve into human beings (on their own - as in without influence from a self-aware being). I never said that.

Please don’t label me when you don’t even have an idea what you’re talking about. I’m not some kind of machine, I don’t need to be looked at as having “thought processes”. I think when I think, I don’t have a pattern of thought, I constantly change. Even those philosophers didn’t think exactly the same way after writing what they wrote.

I don’t give a shit about ‘making it easier’ for you. You’re on your own. I’m not going to make it easy for you, so screw your labels. Labels are for monkeys. It’s attachment, dependency, inability to think for yourself. Think for yourself and leave me the hell out of your goddamn ‘thought process’ profiling project there. I am not your fucking slave.

Inborn instinct that arose through mutation at some point in the past, and survived and spread because it bestowed some survival benefit to the carrier?

Ok, new label: Intermittent Explosive Disorder.

LOL yeah, life is a fucking disease man! We’re all carriers of it!

What you percieve as selfish is a reflection of yourself, not me. I do things for good because I know myself and I know that others exist as well. I am me, and I am them. They are me. It’s not ‘selfish’ in your definition. Once you realize the self is not separate from other ‘selves’, you realize that you’re not really either selfish or altruistic. Those words just emotional attributions to behavior.

I’ve already explained why your jewish bullshit isn’t going to work on me. There is no such thing as Intermittent Explosive Disorder, you fucking moron. Pretty soon anyone who has a perfectly justified school fight is going to be labeled with some kind of ‘disorder’. Soon after that, all emotions are going to labeled as a ‘disorder’. Then soon after the jews are done with you (in their arrogance they will probably believe they don’t need slaves to survive), everyone as themselves will be the disorder and scheduled for extermination.

Ayn Rand would disagree with you. I think she’s a bit psychotic but she makes a few good points. She argues that selfishness is the true standard of virtue. If you don’t always act in your own rational self interest, you are not being virtuous.

I think an altruistic act necissitates a lack of selfishness. People committing genocide may be trying to propagate their family’s genes, but not at an expense of their own wishes. Note this doesn’t make them virtuous, because genocide (we’ll assume) is an irrational behavior, though genocide may be in their own selfish interests.

But what do you consider selfish?
–Spartuninjun

When your cup overfloweth and you lap up what fell to the ground.

waste not, want not

-Imp

waste not, want not
-Imp

Doesn’t follow, sentimental but… it does have a nice monosyllabic rhythm and I like its sentiment.

I don’t care if Ayn Rand would disagree with me. That old jewish hag is dead and good riddance. She was a waste of breathing space.

If selfishness in her definition of the word is a virtue, then it’s altruism. Even if you’re completely selfish without a care or ounce of compassion for anyone else even your own flesh and blood, whatever you do is still atlruistic because you are doing the bidding of nature and nature wants the best genes. Life only does what it thinks is right so it’s going to do whatever it thinks is the best way to survive. Thus, whatever you do, is working towards the goal of truth. Altruism.

But why would you do something like that? The only reason we do anything is the reason for living. We exist, therefore we exist.

The question of Altruism never seems to go away. Part of the reason for this is most people carry a lot of conceptual baggage that they are unwilling to question or part with. Another part of the reason is that often times people are operating under different definitions. This is, of course, a common problem in Philosophy.

I think there are two main definitions for Altruism that most commonly compete in these types of discussions. The first defines Altruism as an action that produces benefits for an other, either in whole or in part. The second defines Altruism as an action motivated by a desire to produce benefits for an other, and the success in doing so.

It seems clear that it would be impossible to be completely Altruistic, because the agent would probably wind up dead very quickly if he did nothing to benefit himself. It seems possible to completely selfish, however. So the real question must be whether or not a person’s behavior can include altruism in addition to his or her basic selfish behaviors.

I agree that selfish behavior is the behavior of survival, and therefore the natural state for creatures of all sorts. I think that if Altruism exists, then it exists as a human creature. In this case it is part and parcel with the human innovation.

I would like to point out that at least some definition of Altruism must be true, because otherwise we wouldn’t have the word. However, the smallest form of Altruism that would fulfill this requirement could be completely selfish acts that appeared Altruistic and gave rise to the concept, however false.

Now, back to the first two definitions of Altruism: If we define an altruistic action as being one that results in benefits only for an other, and take any benefits for the self as defeating the altruistic interpretation of a given action, then I think that Altruism is impossible. It seems as though for any action whatsoever, one can think of some kind of benefit for the self. However, the problem with this is that it would seem absurd to say that an action that resulted in a great deal of harm to the self, and only a small benefit - it would be absurd to say that this was an example of a selfish action.

Therefore, the first definition for Altruism must considered in terms of which element is more significant; benefits for the other, benefits for the self, harm for the other, or harm for the self. In a case where an action produced primarily benefits for the other, rather than for the self - in that sort of case it seems obvious to me that we would want to call that an altruistic action. Likewise, if the opposite were true, we would want to call that a selfish action. And finally, if the action really and truly benefited both parties equally, then we wouldn’t want to call it either - I think this is the sort of situation that we mean by ‘‘enlightened self-interest’’.

The second definition for Altruism allows for many more actions to be considered altruistic. In this definition, what is important is the agent’s motivation. If his or her motivation was to provide benefits for the other, and that person did in fact benefit, then it doesn’t matter, under this definition, whether or not the agent himself or herself benefited as well. Under this definition, all that matters is that I wanted to do something good for you, and that I did it.

I think that this is a fully reasonable account of Altruism, but I realize that there are some people who will never admit that Altruism is possible. It doesn’t matter to them what the ratios of benefits are - if I do something that benefits you greatly and me hardly at all, it will still be considered a completely selfish act by some people. I think this is absurd because it defeats a linguistic utility: namely that of having a word for actions that primarily benefit the other, and a word for actions that primarily benefit the self.

All life is completely altruistic. This is why we have war, we go to battle to willingly end our lives for the sake of others, even if we lose the war. So one group of beings could be ‘inferior’ to another and lose the war which could be considered altruistic towards the winner. All life does what it takes to survive.

We are both selfish and altruistic at the same time. Life will do whatever it takes to survive. We just attribute the word altruism to actions that involve self-sacrifice. There are many animals in the animal kingdom that will self-sacrifice. It just depends on if it’s actually worth it to sacrifice your life in a given situation. Like a female lion has the instinct to protect her cubs at all cost unless her life in danger. Because if she dies then so do the cubs. However human mothers would most likely sacrifice themselves for their childrne because they could still be cared for by other human beings. Other lions would kill a perished mother’s cubs because they are not of their own. If they aren’t of their own then if they were aloud to grow up the pride would not be able to hold together due to genetic/behavioral differences. It’s instinct to make sure that the offspring will be like their father and not better/stronger to ensure the male’s leadership. But the lions do that because they don’t know any other way of living. They live hard lives… so they have to be altruistic, they can’t just let any male lead the pride or else they could all die. So the selfishness you may percieve in a lion is really just life doing what it needs to do to survive.

Everything is altruistic and selfish at the same time because life will do whatever it takes to survive.

You’re having definitional problems. And by the way, I reported you.