The Pathological Altruist

SoNotHer · 10-07-2011, 02:04 AM

I once posed a hypothetical question to a friend about a discussion we were having along the same vein...I asked if you were on a ship with 2,000 people on board but only had enough life rafts to hold 1,000, would you save the 1,000 or would you attempt to overload the life rafts and in the end, no one survives?

It's a Hobson's Choice that speaks more to rational vs. emotion-based thought processes. Altruism could in fact inform either of these, leading one person to let drown 2K in overloaded life boats or destroy a thousand to save a thousand. The impetus for both actions, however, can be altruistic.

I think this is how we, as a society, have come to operate...we want X, but have no logical way to make X happen.

The desire exists before the means. It always has. Visionaries and artists have long understood this. The architect imagines, draws and then orchestrates the three dimensional realization.

And no one wants to make the hard decisions, so we just ignore realities and think about kittens.

I don't know about "no one," but lets agree upon not enough. I don't disagree that we are overwhelmingly more attracted to images and discussions of celebrity makeovers and "baby bumps," for example, than images and discussions of ocean acidification and the loss of coral reef systems, but perhaps those "hard decisions" need to begin on a personal level. As someone once told me, you can control what you can control, and you have to let the rest go. The personal level seems like the most accessible place to begin the shift I sense you are suggesting from thought to action.

What connection did you see to this line of thinking and the article's discussion of the new trajectory in academia to study "altruism" and its manifestations in human behavior and the laws of thermodynamics and cause/effect?

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10-07-2011, 02:04 AM	#7
SoNotHer Senior Member How Do You Identify?: Professional Sandbagger and Jenga Zumba Instructor Join Date: Sep 2011 Location: In the master control room of my world domination dreams Posts: 2,811 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 6,587 Thanked 4,736 Times in 1,409 Posts Rep Power: 21474851	I once posed a hypothetical question to a friend about a discussion we were having along the same vein...I asked if you were on a ship with 2,000 people on board but only had enough life rafts to hold 1,000, would you save the 1,000 or would you attempt to overload the life rafts and in the end, no one survives? It's a Hobson's Choice that speaks more to rational vs. emotion-based thought processes. Altruism could in fact inform either of these, leading one person to let drown 2K in overloaded life boats or destroy a thousand to save a thousand. The impetus for both actions, however, can be altruistic. I think this is how we, as a society, have come to operate...we want X, but have no logical way to make X happen. The desire exists before the means. It always has. Visionaries and artists have long understood this. The architect imagines, draws and then orchestrates the three dimensional realization. And no one wants to make the hard decisions, so we just ignore realities and think about kittens. I don't know about "no one," but lets agree upon not enough. I don't disagree that we are overwhelmingly more attracted to images and discussions of celebrity makeovers and "baby bumps," for example, than images and discussions of ocean acidification and the loss of coral reef systems, but perhaps those "hard decisions" need to begin on a personal level. As someone once told me, you can control what you can control, and you have to let the rest go. The personal level seems like the most accessible place to begin the shift I sense you are suggesting from thought to action. What connection did you see to this line of thinking and the article's discussion of the new trajectory in academia to study "altruism" and its manifestations in human behavior and the laws of thermodynamics and cause/effect?