The good of society

[tendomentis]

As soon as you add the subjective 'emotional kickback', you prevent the counter argument from ever being applied.

MOD EDIT: no need to quote the whole thing - Seshat

Include it, and it makes my side (that pure philanthropy happens) of the argument totally unprovable because even if we find an example where a person claims no emotional reward, you can say 'well, they just didn't record it'.

You can't remove the emotional kickback from the equation anymore than you could remove any other sum from an equation. 2+2 still equals 4, even if you don't like what the total means to your side of the debate.

If you benefit at all from an act, than it can't be an act of pure philanthropy, even if the benefit is simply emotional or otherwise internalized. I understand you disagreeing (as is your right), but it doesn't make you any less incorrect in the end.

[tendomentis]

tendomentis, you've referred several times to the Red Queen principle of keeping up in the evolutionary arms race.

MOD EDIT: No need to quote the whole thing - Seshat

I guess my question is, who/what are we competing with?

Technically, we are still competing with any species that CAN threaten us. So (at least for the part of the USA that I currently live in), wolves, bears (big grizzly ones at that, not Pooh bears), and yes viruses of all different flavors. I think there is even a large breed of mountain lion in this area (I'd have to check again to be sure). We hold them back out of are largely populated centers, but they do sneak back in occasionally and they are still considered a threat. Man to bear, the bear pwns the man in the face.

The Red Queen principle doesn't state that the competing species be similar at all, just a competitor. Bereft of technology, if an equal number of bears decided to live in the house that I share (I have three roommates), the bears would unfortunately win. Same with viruses. Stripped of our technological crutch, a great deal of the human population would die off from a resurgence of diseases that we thought were "dead".

Your idea of humans versus the environment is good thinking, but I think it's really humans versus humans in that case. The environment wouldn't kill us off (it's not actually competing with us), but our own human actions could (again, going back to the origins of this thread).

[Seshat]

Your (Tendomentis') original quote was:

"Human nature is that each human wants what is best for that human. If it helps others along the way, all the better since it tends to garner extra attention, praise, and other advantages, but there is no such thing as pure philanthropy in a human being."

I assert that philanthropy in which a person is not motivated by tangible or social advantage exists, in the human being. I leave aside the question of internal emotional advantage - it's irrelevant to the purpose of my assertion anyway.

I believe that humans are capable of rising above the question of 'what's best for me individually?', and capable of asking and acting on 'what's best for my society?' , 'what's best for some other person?' or even 'what's best for my planet?'; even when they are not motivated by tangible or social benefit from doing so.

(Note that some who are not motivated by tangible or social benefit will still gain it, and some who are motivated by the desire for such benefit will not. This does confuse the issue.)

Heck - you yourself, tendomentis, ask such questions. It's entirely possible that you act on them (how would I know?) with no motivation for tangible or social benefit. If you do, then you're proof of my assertion.

[tendomentis]

MOD EDIT: No need to quote the whole thing - Seshat

I believe that humans are capable of rising above the question of 'what's best for me individually?', and capable of asking and acting on 'what's best for my society?' , 'what's best for some other person?' or even 'what's best for my planet?'; even when they are not motivated by tangible or social benefit from doing so.

Seshat, your beliefs are your own of course, but choosing to believe that pure philanthropy exists within humanity and turning a blind eye to the emotional benefits that would negate your hypothetical pure philanthropy doesn't lend much credibility to your point of view. You fail to acknowledge the emotional benefits that an act of charity would cause within the acting human to allow your concept of pure philanthropy to exist.

So, in essence, your belief in pure philanthropy is a faith based assertion, and not an assertion based on all available knowledge or demonstration of the concept. I will respect your position and not attempt to disprove your faith (faith based assertions also are generally impossible to correct since any data presented to correct the assertion is disregarded and justified by the faith-based aspect of the incorrect assertion itself, as is seen in your case where you simply refuse to acknowledge the "emotional kickback" in order to sustain your belief).

Your concept of pure philanthropy existing within humanity is a noble concept, but I can't accept it on faith as you do. It would be impossible to prove that it doesn't exist, but I see evidence every day to DISprove your assertion and none to support it.

[Seshat]

Actually, I was trying to say that the emotional kickback - which I do not in any way deny - is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Which is more about whether humans always act in a way which gives them survival advantage.

Emotional advantage is only a slender survival advantage; and rarely significant when compared to the tangible or social cost of some types of philanthropy.

In this case, it was me who failed to be clear. Let's eliminate the phrase 'pure philanthropy' from this particular argument, and rephrase my assertion more accurately:

Human beings sometimes perform acts which lower their survival advantage, and they perform them for emotional and/or charitable reasons.

[tendomentis]

Human beings sometimes perform acts which lower their survival advantage, and they perform them for emotional and/or charitable reasons.

Humans OFTEN perform acts that lower their survival advantage. Riding without a helmet, neglecting to fasten your seat belt, driving well above the speed limit, merging without checking their blind spots, smoking, excessive alchohol intake, over-eating, unprotected sex, etc....the list really does go on and on. They do it for the personal benefits with no regard to the long-term effects on the species.

That's kind of the point of this thread. Humans DO NOT perform acts for charitable (hitherto defined as "selfless") reasons; there is ALWAYS a personal benefit to the "charitable" or "selfless" person performing the act, even if it is just an emotional benefit.

Humans demonstrate over and over again throughout our recorded history that we are a very short-sighted species. We only will be concerned with how our present day actions affect future generations when our social standing (our perceived "image") is negatively impacted if we are not. Even the "movers and shakers" who start an activist movement redeem some self-satisfaction or sense of achievement from their actions (if not other benefits as well).

As a short-sighted species, we OFTEN perform acts that lower our survival advantage for short term personal benefit, which is what "charity" and "philanthropy" are when you analytically critique them rather than romanticize them. Such acts are generally NOT done for "the good of society", but for the individual. The fact that such acts CAN benefit others (again, often only in the short term) is a side-effect that can be disguised as the original intent.

My viewpoint is still that our species' use of technology to "better" our lives is halting any progressive evolution we might make as a species, both mentally and physiologically. We prefer our technological crutch because we look at what is good for ourselves as individuals rather than what is for "the good of society" overall.

[DesignFox]

My viewpoint is still that our species' use of technology to "better" our lives is halting any progressive evolution we might make as a species, both mentally and physiologically. We prefer our technological crutch because we look at what is good for ourselves as individuals rather than what is for "the good of society" overall.

I guess I just have to agree to disagree. I can't put any of my jumbled thoughts into words, right now.

I just think that it's impossible to prove how we would develop from an evolutionary standpoint, and therefore impossible to say that what we are doing with technology is bad for everyone.

[Boozy]

I just think that it's impossible to prove how we would develop from an evolutionary standpoint, and therefore impossible to say that what we are doing with technology is bad for everyone.

I agree. We cannot presume to know the results our actions will have over the course of generations. There are countless variables, and its the height of hubris to assume we know them all.

[rahmota]

I agree. We cannot presume to know the results our actions will have over the course of generations. There are countless variables, and its the height of hubris to assume we know them all.

Exactly go back a few hundred years to the begining of the industrial revolution and see what the brains though technology would do to human evolution, then the begining of the technology revolution. All along humanity has been tying to predicte what our future will be like thanks to our technology and they havent exactly been doing too good with the accuracy ratio there.

[machinest]

I think that the use of technology is one of the major forms of how humans have evolved. I can no more see us not using technology than a bear not using its claws. It is the way that we have evolved to deal with the world.

[BlackIronCrown]

I was citing artificial birth control as a negative for the human species at large.

My personal viewpoint is that any circumvention of our species' natural evolution will inevitably have a negative impact on our species as a whole in the long term.

Then we began circumventing it the moment we figured out how to make tools.
Evolutionarily, humanity is at a standstill. We no longer adapt to other systems; we make those systems adapt to us. Technology is our personal solution for evolution.

I, for one, favor technology over evolution. It gives us control over our destinies and allows us to be the arbiters of our eventual fate.

If the entire pack slows to help pull the tailing runners along, the majority of the group will be overtaken, where if the front runners and middle runners manage to get away, their offspring will inherit the traits that made their forebears able to outrun the hungry angry lion. Uh huh, survival of the fittest.

Ok, we need to stop the brakes RIGHT HERE. Y'know why?
Survival of the fittest has absolutely nothing to do with evoluionary survival. Even Darwin says this in his famous book on the subject. People have misunderstood this for centuries.

Evolutionary survival has to do with who can best adapt to a situation. The whole thing about the weak ones of a pack being eaten is pure nonsense. A better analogy to bring this close to humans is where those tailing runners stop, pull out submachineguns, and blow away the lion.

Those tailing runners? Have proven their worth. They adapted. They survived. They have evolved.

[tendomentis]

Haven't been back to check on this thread in a while.

I, for one, favor technology over evolution. It gives us control over our destinies and allows us to be the arbiters of our eventual fate.

How completely untrue that statement is. Technology doesn't make you the arbiter of your fate any more than natural evolution does. It just provides a false sense of security that the majority of the human population buys into.

Honestly, that's the same exact mindset that doomed the RMS Titanic. Those who neglect history and all that jazz...

[DesignFox]

Technology doesn't make you the arbiter of your fate any more than natural evolution does.

If that's the case, what's the difference if we use our technology or not? If our time as a species is up, it's up. Whether we fight disease or accept and die from it, the end result will ultimately be the same- maybe. There's no real way of knowing.

[tendomentis]

The difference is very simple. By being immunized against malaria (for example) we don't develop the natural immunity to that disease that we have for other deadly diseases, and in a disaster that robs us of our technology we are negatively impacted where if we hadn't circumvented our natural evolution we might have that immunity. The use of technology is essentially allowing our population to exist on credit. We aren't developing these immunities because we simply don't NEED to at the moment as we have an artificial alternative.

That isn't "fate". Fate is something altogether different (but that's for another thread).

[DesignFox]

But we haven't developed immunity on our own. That's why we have vaccines to begin with.

Small pox wasn't eradicated because people just became immune to it. We vaccinated everyone in the world. Now it's gone. No more small pox.

Maybe we can't acheive the same with all diseases, but protecting the larger part of the population hasn't hurt anything. Maybe the apocolypse will come and maybe it won't. Some people will survive. Others won't. That's just the way it will be.