Good Reason

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Open thread number 400!

Already it is Post 400. You may use this thread for any discussion you wish, like all the other threads. Maybe this would be a good place for comments about the ‘Who is the most batshit insane?” poll. For my part, I have to report a glaring omission: I forgot to add ‘9/11 truthers’ to the list. Oh well, maybe next time.

15 Comments

  1. http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge225.html#hauser

    Wow, 400! that’s quite substantial.

    Check out this article in Edge about something written by Marc Hauser on whether religious people are more altruistic because of their religion or because of who they are (which is why they are religious).

    Pretty offensive really, so if you aren’t religious you’re less likely to be altruistic either way?

  2. Maybe religious people are more altruistic on average, but that’s no reason to be offended. After all, it doesn’t mean all religious people are more altruistic than all non-religious people.

    What’s wrong with Libertarianism?

  3. Libertarians want to reduce the role of the gummint where it suits them, like with taxes and smoking pot, while taking advantage of areas where the government helps us, like roads, schools, and public infrastructure. It’s like conservatism in that it’s narcisisstic and adolescently self-serving, except that where conservatism wants to take us back 50 years, libertarianism wants to take us back 500.

    Morbo over at the Carpetbagger’s place has written a great plot summary of ‘Atlas Shrugged’, the major work of Ayn Rand, and probably the worst novel of the last 100 years.

    Yes, this thread is target practice. Next post I’ll be nicer. Maybe. The odds are good.

  4. I had to go for people who still approve of Bush.

    Altruism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anyway. I only learned how to be selfish a lot later in life and it’s been uphill since then. The trouble with so-called altruists is they always need gratitude or praise or reward (they’re lying if they say they don’t – cf episode of Friends with Phoebe and ‘Evil’ Joey)

  5. ps I hope you understand I am not advocating a Rand-style ‘selfish’!

  6. I think if people only do good things so they get praise for it, it doesn’t count as real altruism. Altruism consists of doing good acts that have no benefit for the doer. And praise counts as a benefit.

    I find it much more interesting looking at the biological reasons for altruism, for example that we only help people in the hope that if we’re in a bad situation later then they will help us back. Or that we are more inclined to help our family simply because they share more genes with us, and we want to pass on those genes. Looking at it this way kind of makes “altruism” seem a bit empty.

  7. I may be missing some finer points here but seems to me that as a member of an orginized religion you are expected to e involved in what I would call passive altruism. As a member of the Mormon church I had many opportunities to give money and/or participate in “altruistic” activities. Of course this is a lie because while it feels altruistic to me as an individual participant I am really handing over the responsibility of choosing projects to an organization which will of course always work towards it’s own good.

    The article seemed to use quantity of giving (money, blood, time) AS THE ONLY CRITERIA. Now that I am not a member of a religious organization I am responsible for choosing my altruistic actions and programs. It’s a choice I must make and is not going to boost my appearance or standing within any social institution. Therefor I think my actions (or anyone else’s) as an individual are far more “altruistic” than any actions I performed as a member of a church, even though it is true I did more of those activities when I was in the church

  8. Seems like ‘real’ altruism is hard to find. I’m having trouble thinking of any ‘selfless’ act that doesn’t give some benefit to the doer, even if it’s just some happy feeling that you did something for someone else.

    In fact, altruism was one of Rand’s strawmen. She argued that altruism was bad because she defined it as an act that that gave the doer no personal benefit. Because it’s not really altruism if you’re getting benefit from it, right? So to her, the only really altruistic act was one that harmed the doer. And then she argued that it was immoral to harm yourself, and that selfishness was great.

    You can see the problems you get if you start defining things in wacky ways.

  9. Have you been following the nicely postmodern set of Dinosaur comics recently?

    🙂

  10. You’re so post-modernist, you see post-modernism where there isn’t any.

  11. There’s a song by The Bedroom Philosopher called “I’m So Postmodern”. I found it hilarious. I suggest you all check it out. 🙂

    http://www.bedroomphilosopher.com/2000/01/10/im-so-postmodern-lyrics/

  12. I did enjoy the Dinosaur comics, especially this one:

    http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001092.html

    I don’t think it makes the point though. What can you do with a mathematical system where 2 + 1 is not equal to 1 + 2? Nothing useful. Such a system would fail when the rubber met the road, internally consistent or no.

    This is why people who do science are out there building things and finding vaccines (etc.) that work in the real world, and people who do post-modernism are discussing Lacanian post-patriarchalist neodeconstructivism as it relates to psycho-sexual identity.

  13. Hahaha, Stephanie I watched that video clip… the funniest bit was:

    “I’m so post-modern, I went home and I typed up everything you said and printed it out in wingdings and gave it back to you”

  14. Yeah but at least we can chill out cos we don’t always have something to prove!

  15. I’ll drink to that.

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