NationStates Jolt Archive

At the urging of Imperial Puerto Rico, I have created this poll. Ask him why he wants it so much.

huh?

At the urging of Imperial Puerto Rico, I have created this poll. Ask him why he wants it so much.

ROTFL. No, I'm not. :D

When you preach Communism to non-communists that may actually listen, remember to tell them the obvious:

Luxuries cannot be guarenteed.

You'll see how fast they stop paying attention to what the hell you're saying.

Oh this is just...precious. Thank you so much for this.

And no, I'm not, either.

LOL

Yep, I'm selfish. Everyone is selfish, or lying.

Yep, I'm selfish. Everyone is selfish, or lying.

Or stupid

Yep, I'm selfish. Everyone is selfish, or lying.
Not lying, not selfish. Hard to be selfish as a Christian Marxist. Thats twice as much commandment not to be :D

Yep, I'm selfish. Everyone is selfish, or lying.

The question was: Are you a selfish bastard? I think that should be two separate questions. Some people may be selfish, others a bastard, but not always both. ;)

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that everyone is selfish... Even those that don't think they are...

There really is nothing that is 100% altruistic... If you feel good about doing something for someone else, then you've just been "paid" for your "selfless" act... It sounds cliche, but it's true...

Of course, as with everything, there are many varying shades of selfishness and selflessness...

I mean, someone can be 99% selfless... In which case, you might as well just call them selfless... But that 1% of selfishness will always remain...

There really is nothing that is 100% altruistic... If you feel good about doing something for someone else, then you've just been "paid" for your "selfless" act... It sounds cliche, but it's true...
What about when you do things you don't want to that you don't have the time to do for someone else? There is no payback there. What about people like Mother Teresa? Or people who volunteer to work in hospices for the terminally ill?

What about when you do things you don't want to that you don't have the time to do for someone else? There is no payback there.

Sounds like my job. Can't wait till I get out of that dead-end, low-wage, hell-hole. Come on passport!


What about people like Mother Teresa? Or people who volunteer to work in hospices for the terminally ill?


Mother Teresa? MOTHER TERESA?!?! Don't even get me started on that selfish bitch! Helping the worlds worst off! Please! That's about as selfish as it gets! And anyone who volunteers for anything is just a selfish bloodsucker! Ghandi? Ghandi was prick!


It's all about number one baby! Numero Uno! The Big Cheese! Greed is good! F**k the poor, eat the rich, and the hell with tommorrow.


Wait, is this supposed to be a serious thread or not? It's so hard to tell sometimes. I'm so confused! (thus my location)
I'm going for not. :D

What about when you do things you don't want to that you don't have the time to do for someone else? There is no payback there. What about people like Mother Teresa? Or people who volunteer to work in hospices for the terminally ill?

I don't think that there are any such cases...

If you don't want to do something, then you don't do it... Plain and simple... Anything you do, you do for a reason...

In order for someone to do something (of their own will), they have to have some desire to do so... In the case of helping people like Mother Teresa, your payback is the satisfaction of being helpful... Same thing with hospital volunteers... Sure, you don't get paid, and if the patients are terminally ill, they're obviously not going to pay you back (I don't mean that to be as cruel and heartless as it came out...lol), but you still have the satisfaction that you're helping people... Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing it...

And the payback doesn't even have to be a direct result of helping... You can be doing something in order to "buy" something else...

Needs some refinement - everyone is either selfish, lying, or a communist (or a couple of religions that actually help the needy).

I personally am not selfish by means of the third item on that list.

F**k the poor, eat the rich...

Umm... kinky? If that's how it works, I'm kind of glad I'm poor. I'd rather be f**ked than eaten.

I don't think that there are any such cases...

If you don't want to do something, then you don't do it... Plain and simple... Anything you do, you do for a reason...

In order for someone to do something (of their own will), they have to have some desire to do so... In the case of helping people like Mother Teresa, your payback is the satisfaction of being helpful... Same thing with hospital volunteers... Sure, you don't get paid, and if the patients are terminally ill, they're obviously not going to pay you back (I don't mean that to be as cruel and heartless as it came out...lol), but you still have the satisfaction that you're helping people... Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing it...

And the payback doesn't even have to be a direct result of helping... You can be doing something in order to "buy" something else...

Well I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I sometimes have to do things I don't want to for no reward, mostly they leave me feeling annoyed that I couldn't have spent the time doing something else. S'alright didnt seem cruel and heartless ;)

Well I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I sometimes have to do things I don't want to for no reward, mostly they leave me feeling annoyed that I couldn't have spent the time doing something else.

Out of interest, do you have any examples

I honestly can't think of anything that would fit that description, Xenasia...

Why were you doing those things? If they were nothing but an inconvenience, what made you choose to do them?

Was it to gain approval of someone else? Was it to help someone out?

If either of the above apply, then those actions are not entirely selfless...

You don't have to enjoy the action (you could even be hurt by the action) for you to be gaining something from it (directly or indirectly, it doesn't matter)...

Because I had things to do that had to be done and if no one else did them they would stay undone. Sorry I am not going to explain what they were as it is not something I want to put here. Besides by your definition, expanded to include even bad experiences, there is no good in the world. I can't agree. Sorry.

Because I had things to do that had to be done and if no one else did them they would stay undone.

In this case, my argument is that there was obviously a need for these things to get done, and by doing them, you are satisfying that need... If it is one of your own needs, then there's an obvious reward... If it's someone else's need, then your reward is that you helped them out... If the need is purely one of preventing something worse from occuring, then there's the reward..

For instance, cleaning the cat's litter box doesn't seem very rewarding... It takes time, it's a smelly job, but someone has to do it, or it won't get done... Why? If it doesn't get done, then the house will smell bad, and the cat is likely to relieve itself on the floor somewhere... So, cleaning the litter prevents that, and is therefore rewarding you with something...

I know that example is probably a lot less serious than what you've got in mind (considering your next statement), but the same principle applies, I think...

Sorry I am not going to explain what they were as it is not something I want to put here.

No apologies need be made... Personal things should be kept personal...

Besides by your definition, expanded to include even bad experiences, there is no good in the world. I can't agree. Sorry.

I do suppose that my view ultimately ends in a world with no truly "good" deeds... But what is a "good" deed? It is an action that brings good into the world, right? Isn't that a reward?

Isn't the knowledge of selflessness a reward in itself? You obviously want to feel that the world contains purely good deeds... Isn't that a rewarding feeling?

Besides the obvious paradox in that, isn't it correct?

Some really interesting points there SSGX.

Had to have a bit of a think. It comes down I think to two things.

Firstly what constitutes a reward.
Secondly whether any sort of reward negates the selflessness of an act.

I think that for me a reward is something that the recipient benfits from, I wouldn't count a negative experience if the aftermath was bad. OK so it may be that ulimately a bad experience will benefit a person but that could be years down the line and is not really something you could count on. Also I don't think it likely someone will say, I'll do this as even though it's horrendous, I'll be better for it in ten years time.
I think that if an act is done with the reward as the primary motivation then you are right. For me through an act done without thought of reward but that brings a reward anyway is a selfless act. I think that whether an act ii selfless is all to do with motivation, as do you, but that it is possible to do a good deed without thought of reward.

Well, I do want to point out that I'm not nearly as cynical as my statements here have seemed...

I, too, believe that even though virtually everything you do has a positive reward, and is therefore, not entirely selfless, that one can still act with the good of others in mind...

Regardless of whether you get something out of it or not, doing a good deed for another, without the goal of receiving your reward (personal satisfaction, in most cases), is essentially a selfless act... Yes, you're still getting something out of it, but if you're not focused on that, you can hardly be called selfish...

I'm just arguing the point that pretty much anything you do (of your own free will), gains you something, and is therefore, "selfish"... Or rather, "not entirely selfless", to be more precise...

Heck, even in the cases where your conscious motivation is a selfless one, perhaps subconsciously, you're still going after that reward... But even so, I actually do believe that a person can perform an act without their own needs or desires at the forefront...

But, we're still all selfish by design...

*Does the selfish thug dance.*

Yes, I'm selfish and proud of it! Thank God for our Constitutional right to be pricks!

But, we're still all selfish by design...
I think we're conditioned that way by society. But since we seem to agree, (just about :) ) on almost everything else we'll let that slide huh?
This has been a really good debate SSGX, thanks, actually learnt something :D

I completely understand what people are saying about there being no truly altruistic acts.

If one does something that has no tangible good result for them, on the surface it is a selfless act. But the very consideration of what the "right" action is creates the selfish aspect.

If you give to charity because your religion says it's right, then your reward is in 'heaven'.

If you help someone out even though there is cost to yourself, at some level you have decided you want to be known as a helpful person. Your reputation is your reward.

For someone like the guy in Japan that anonymously gave away his winning lottery ticket, he didnt get anything tangible in return, nor did he get the recognition of having done it, since he remained anonymous. But he probably got a really good feeling from doing it, or he was living up to some religious principle, or...who knows... there is some positive result he got from that action and that's ONE of the reasons why he chose to do it.

The most selfless act i can think of is a parent giving their life up to protect their children. But if you consider that parents consider children extensions of themselves, this also becomes questionable as totally 'selfless'.

THat's not to say that i dont think there is anything truly good in the world. I happen to think that one can accomplish good things even with selfish motives. For instance, I volunteer coach high jumpers. It takes my time at my expense with no tangible reward. Part of the reason i do it is to help the kids enjoy something that brought me great pleasure. But i have to admit that i am repaid with respect and admiration and with the joy of seeing the kids do well with what i have taught them. The head coach keeps apologizing for not having me on the payroll, and i just tell him that i am just happy they don't make me PAY to be there, because i enjoy it so much.

so is that selfish? on one level it is, on another it isn't.

It depends on whether you define selflessness on whether one gets a good feeling or a good result.

By MY definition, any action whatsoever is not selfless except that moment when one ceases to act, ceases to EXIST as SELF. The moment of satori when the self is absorbed into the Oneness. Only the most enlightened of beings have achieved this. THe rest of us, who use the first person in speech, are NOT this enlightened. We are self-directed and therefore the self cannot be extracted from our actions.

I don't know why it won't let me edit that last post to include this, so i will just add another reply.

"The individual shell in which my personality is so solidly encased explodes at the moment of Satori. Not, necessarily, that I get unified with a being greater than myself or absorbed in it, but that my individuality, which I found rigidly held together and definitely kept separate from other individual existences, becomes lossened somehow from its tightening grip and melts away into something indescribable, something which is of quite a different order from what I am accustomed to. "

For more information on the Zen experience of Satori, here's the link this quote comes from:

http://sped2work.tripod.com/satori.html

Thank you, a Zen point of view is somewhat unexpected here :)

Ah dang ...

I answered the poll wrong. I thought it said "Are you a shellfish".

Ah well ... next time.

Yeah, that was a very welcome addition to the topic at hand...

You also did a good job of summing up my view on it (minus the Zen stuff, of course, which I don't disagree with, but obviously wasn't a part of my argument...lol)

But anyways, my thanks as well for bringing that to the table...

And I think I've solved the mystery of why it wouldn't let you edit your original post... The username on that post is Tropical Montana, while the one you just used is TropicalMontana (without the space in between)...