In response to "Altruism is crap": no, I genuinely enjoy helping people whether I expect something in return or not. It's pleasing to me to know that I held a door for someone I'll never see again when they had their hands full or had some other impediment.
I will admit that I do expect some sort of return from a great deal of the things I do -- if not necessarily financial, I do expect to get exposure which could benefit me in the future when I help people on the cf-talk list or when I release a bit of open-source software (and it's nice to see that people recommend my StripTags function from cflib even though I haven't used it myself in a long time). Maybe this has or will help me to find jobs (full-time or contract) -- the reward is somewhat ambiguous in these cases, but it is there. But there are definitely counter examples of situations (the afforementioned example of holding a door) in which the two conditions of a) receiving pleasure from the act of helping someone else and b) knowing that I will _never_ personally benefit from the act (outside of the personal gratification of the act itself, which is I believe how altruism is defined) do in fact coincide. It has its limits, sure... I still feel used occasionally, and I won't simply do someone's job for them if it becomes apparent that they're not interested in learning the techniques I have to teach them to do their own job (and at the risk of sounding racist, I've had this experience more frequently with middle-eastern MSN-messenger users than anyone else -- I won't hazard a guess at why). But none of that invalidates my having a desire to help people that precedes my self-interest. > I love this research, I know many people on this list > think that mankind is > an essentially selfish creature - this just shows that we > got where we are > by helping each other, not stabbing each other in the > back. > On 3/3/06, Larry C. Lyons <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> Altruistic behavior exists - saying it doesn't is simply >> doing what >> you have accused Matt of doing. Its an area in psych >> research that's >> been around for a while. calling it Altruism or Phred or >> whatever >> doesn't change things at all, its a set of pro-social >> behaviors that >> may some cross species basis. >> >> larry >> >> On 3/3/06, Loathe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > Altruism is crap. >> > >> > It doesn't exist. Self interest at some level guides >> > everything we do. >> > >> > -- >> > Tim Heald >> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > 703-300-3911 s. isaac dealey 434.293.6201 new epoch : isn't it time for a change? add features without fixtures with the onTap open source framework http://www.fusiontap.com http://coldfusion.sys-con.com/author/4806Dealey.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:198884 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
