On 11/26/2013 1:20 PM, LizR wrote:
On 27 November 2013 07:22, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
Suppose you work for yourself instead of society. Or as George Carlin put it,
"If
I'm here for other people, what are those other people here for?"
"What has posterity ever done for me?"
This is an evolutionary choice between being a loner or a herd animal. Some predators
tend to be loners, a lot of prey tend to be herd animals. Humans appear to be prey - we
generally do a poor job of surviving long term without the protection of society.
Wolves and orcas are 'herd' animals too.
Much as I like George Carlin, he wouldn't last long without the help of "all those other
people" he's being dismissive of (or was he being ironic, to make a point?
I take his point to be that people need to have some intrinsic purpose and values. To
just help other people assumes those other people are going supply the purposes and
values, so altrusim can't be a fundamental value.
Brent
Sometimes it's hard to tell out of context). No one works for themselves in practice,
though a lot of people would like to think they do, while happily accepting the benefits
of living in a society - clean water, food, lack of predators, shelter etc. It should be
a reciprocal arrangement.
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