33 comments to “Altruism”

1. Francois Tremblay:
   27 June 2006, on 11:53 am

   Whatever are you going on about? There is no such thing as “altruism”.

2. Sean:
   27 June 2006, on 11:59 am

   Yes there is. Without it, we would not survive.

3. Marcus:
   27 June 2006, on 12:06 pm

   Hooray for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet! Two of the most generous private individuals in humanity- and they’re atheist to boot. Smoke that, xian hypocrites.

4. Sean:
   27 June 2006, on 2:21 pm

   I figgered after cursing Bill Gates so much during the GifS redesign, he deserved a bit an apology from me.

   Now Bill. How about a few million for this free atheist web service we run?

5. stardust1954:
   27 June 2006, on 2:40 pm

   Look what our visitor M thinks of Bill Gates.

   Microsoft is a huge abortion supporter!

   (These xians always focus on the negative and never mention the good that Planned Parenthood does to EDUCATE people about sex and PREVENTING pregnancy and STD’s)

6. skribb:
   27 June 2006, on 2:45 pm

   Like Tremblay said, altruism does not exist, technically. It is more of a warped, merged illusion of egoism, sympathy and empathy.

   Altruism is simply a tactic social skill, in short.

7. Sean:
   27 June 2006, on 3:08 pm

   Like Tremblay said, altruism does not exist, technically. It is more of a warped, merged illusion of egoism, sympathy and empathy

   How can you make such an absolutist statement about one of the most elusive subjects in human behavoir — one that is still being researched extensively?

8. skribb:
   27 June 2006, on 4:47 pm

   I didn’t make an absolute statement (It is more of a warped, merged illusion of egoism, sympathy and empathy
   ), it was more of an estimate. I AM quite certain it doesn’t exist though, I’ve been pondering this subject for a few years now and haven’t come up with anything more plausible than “Nah, it’s bullshit”.

9. raindogzilla:
   27 June 2006, on 5:00 pm

   Whatever you want to call it, 44 Billion is 44 Billion. Doesn’t matter if Jeebus told him to do it, his own heirs pissed him off for the last time, or he just finally came to the conclusion that anyone having that amount of money was absurd. Buffett’s always been a maverick and, MS aside, Bill, his wife, and his dad are responsible global citizens. Isn’t it seriously wonderful that none of them are invoking the Adult Imaginary Friend in this endeavor? Refreshing.

   My prediction: In the year 2037, I will go down in a hail of lead in some postal incident. And…
   Jan. 20, 2009 President Albert Gore!!

10. Sean:
    27 June 2006, on 5:16 pm

    All right, as long as we are on the subject, I accept the argument that it is possibly bullshit. The burden of proof is on those that believe altruism exists. I have a few thoughts, but I put it first to you brilliant folks. Can anybody name a single, documented incident of human altruism?

    Here is the literal definition:

    al·tru·ism (ăl’trū-ĭz’əm) pronunciation
    n.

    1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
    2. Zoology. Instinctive cooperative behavior that is detrimental to the individual but contributes to the survival of the species.

    The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

11. jimmer:
    28 June 2006, on 12:14 am

    I saw them on Charlie Rose last night. Not one word of thanks to god no mention of god at all. Buffet still lives in the same home he bought for $31,000 40 years ago. Eats burgers for lunch. Good guy He helped mnay people become millionaires. Google him and find out how many people he has helped and now how many he will continue to help. Absolutly amazing.
    And yeah 44 billion is still 44 billion Altruistic or not. It is none the less very generous.

12. skribb:
    28 June 2006, on 9:10 am

    Some people say Doctors Without Borders (or whatever they’re called) act through altruism, but I say they don’t. They do it because it makes THEM feel good. This is the ultimate basis for so-called “altruism”. If it doesn’t make you feel good, or if it doesn’t give you any benefits, you won’t do it (unless when you’ve a gun pointed to your head, but that doesn’t count, whichever way you look at it).

13. skribb:
    28 June 2006, on 9:14 am

    I forgot to add; the Zoology definition of altruism is way off base. Unless it only applies to animals other than the human species, since I have no knowledge of other species’ behavior.

14. Lynda:
    28 June 2006, on 9:38 am

    Nice little club Bill and Warren have going there. Very elite.
    I wonder if tax sheltering aspects of their “charitable” foundations figure at all in these seemingly magnanimous gestures.
    I’ve come to the conclusion that if any charitable organization really gave a hoot about world poverty, suffering, disease, etc., they’d join their organizations into one to reduce overhead and administration costs.
    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, like Gate’s monopolistic ventures, raises my suspicion.

15. Lynda:
    28 June 2006, on 9:49 am

    Scientists are studying animal behavior for the underlying cause and motivation behind altruistic acts. The verdict will be a long time coming I believe. There’s a lot of territory to cover.
    A volunteer running into a burning building to rescue a child of no relation, risking his/her own physical well-being, seems to suggest that altruism does actually exist in humans. A mega-billionare contributing a small portion of his unrequired wealth to his own foundation doesn’t nearly match in magnitude.

16. Stardust:
    28 June 2006, on 10:55 am

    They do it because it makes THEM feel good.

    My nephew and his wife who are paramedics volunteered to go to New Orleans after Katrina and they did not feel good when they came back and did not want to be considered to be heroes or anything like that. Most would not be able to stomach what they see in their line of work. Oftentimes they come home shaken by their experiences. They are more often sad than “feeling good”, yet they keep doing it.

17. skribb:
    28 June 2006, on 11:48 am

    You misunderstood me. I did not mean “feel good” in a literal sense. It is hard to explain, but I’ll try: Let’s say I’m your nephew, Stardust. I go to New Orleans and help the Katrina victims. I become shaken by what I experience, and it is hard to stomach some of the things I see. What keeps me going? Is it because I WANT, ENJOY and LIKE TO help people, or because I dislike it and I only do it to serve some other, divine/vague/nondescript cause? Most likely it is the former – because I get satisfaction from doing what I do. I myself ([/nephew]) would never do such a thing because I wouldn’t receive any significant amount of satisfaction.

    Do I make myself clear, or should I take another 10 years of English classes (Swedish is my mother tongue)? >_

18. stardust1954:
    28 June 2006, on 12:31 pm

    skribb – What about when a person puts his life at risk for another, when a soldier throws himself over a grenade in order to save others, when a person rushes into a burning building and oftentime dies to save a neighbor? They aren’t around afterwards to feel anything. What “satisfaction” do they get out of dying?

19. Eve:
    28 June 2006, on 1:05 pm

    Maybe altruism is a manifestation of the instinct to preserve the species even at the expense of the individual? We know it’s an instinct that subsumes the instinct of self-preservation in mothers, who will risk their lives or even die for their offspring, and it even comes out sometimes in non-parental males who help/save children. Could our desire to help others be traced to that instinct as a fundamental source, perhaps?

20. stardust1954:
    28 June 2006, on 1:21 pm

    Maybe altruism is a manifestation of the instinct to preserve the species even at the expense of the individual? We know it’s an instinct that subsumes the instinct of self-preservation in mothers, who will risk their lives or even die for their offspring, and it even comes out sometimes in non-parental males who help/save children. Could our desire to help others be traced to that instinct as a fundamental source, perhaps?

    Eve – I think it could be. Most people who die while saving others don’t even stop to consider the danger to themselves or that they are doing a “good” thing. It’s completely impulsive in most cases and in most cases there no time to even think about it.

    But that brings up another question…why do some people have this instinct and others not?

21. Eve:
    28 June 2006, on 2:34 pm

    Good question, Star; I’m wondering if perhaps it’s some sort of biological categorization within the species? You know, like how in animal herds the individuals born with the best eyesight and perception naturally gravitate to and are by and large socially guided into acting as the herd’s scouts/lookouts?

22. skribb:
    28 June 2006, on 4:05 pm

    What “satisfaction” do they get out of dying?

    Well, none, not in the same way, at least. Like I said, it’s hard to describe, and I’m neither a biologist nor a psychiatrist. Those particular kinds of actions may very well be altruism, but not the altruism that everyone refers to when saying the word. Eve said something about instinct – that would be it. But it is NOT something conscious, selfless or goodwilling.

    You should try to think about why you act the way you, that’s how I discovered altruism was non-existant (see above in my post). Whenever I did something for someone else, I asked myself “Why do I do this? Do I benefit from this, even though it feel’s like I’m being altruistic?” My answers were always “yes”.

    (At times like this I always feel like smacking myself in the head – it feels like I have to defend my point, even though I’m just trying to prove it, not defend it.)

23. Eve:
    28 June 2006, on 4:30 pm

    Skribb, I see your point, but you are basing your conclusion on your own individual experience, which gives it a tenuous base at best when trying to apply to the entire species.

    Secondly, you describe thinking about why you act that way *after* you’ve performed the act. Do you think about it *before* you act? If so, do you feel that it makes you decide to do something for someone else more or less often? If it *is* an impulse, and I tend toward that conclusion myself, where does that impulse come from and why as Star asked do some people not possess it?

    Also, I wonder if altruism could also be a manifestation of empathy. We know we all have it to varying degrees; those people who don’t have it seem to be some sort of aberrations, almost uniformly psycho- and sociopaths. Maybe this is why it’s so hard to get people interested in the plight of others; they can’t quite mentally step into their shoes?

24. bbb:
    28 June 2006, on 6:10 pm

    I wonder if tax sheltering aspects of their “charitable” foundations figure at all in these seemingly magnanimous gestures.
    I’ve come to the conclusion that if any charitable organization really gave a hoot about world poverty, suffering, disease, etc., they’d join their organizations into one to reduce overhead and administration costs.
    The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, like Gate’s monopolistic ventures, raises my suspicion.

    Tell me you’re joking because, if not, you’re a jackass of the highest order.

25. Ford:
    28 June 2006, on 11:44 pm

    I understand the idea skribb. The “everybody is really selfish” idea. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it is false.

    Two things.
    We have a goal, we complete it, we feel good because we completed it

    OR,

    we find something that makes us feel good (a monkey with a wire in his brain that stimulates the “happy” areas whenever a button is pushed) and do it simply to feel good. Altruism is the former.

    1.Goal–>”Yay! I did it!”=Altruism
    2.Feeling good is the goal.=Personal upkeep.
    3.Feeling good is the goal at the cost of others’ welfare.=Selfishness.

    I’m not quite satisfied with this explaination, but I’m in a different state of mind today which is hindering my normal ability to explain things better. So, if this isn’t satisfying to you either, I might explain it again later.

    Remember, feeling good is intimately linked with the reason/goal, they aren’t detached from each other.

26. P.C.:
    29 June 2006, on 5:20 am

    Sean said: “Can anybody name a single, documented incident of human altruism?”

    I can give a number of documented accounts for you Sean, but I will only list one. This man I have met and interviewed. Forgive the long post and please take the time to read it.

    Private First Class Jacklyn Harrell Lucas earned the Medal of Honor during the Iwo Jima campaign for unhesitatingly hurling himself over his comrades upon one grenade and for pulling another one under himself, absorbing the whole blasting force of the explosions with his own body.

    Private First Class Lucas, the youngest Marine ever to receive the nation’s highest military decoration, was presented the award by President Harry S. Truman at the White House on Friday, 5 October 1945.

    Jacklyn Harrell Lucas was born in Plymouth, North Carolina, 14 February 1928. He attended high school at nearby Salemburg and was captain of the football team. He was an all-around sportsman, also taking part in baseball, softball, basketball, boxing, wrestling, horseback riding, trap and skeet shooting, and hunting.

    Although only 14 years of age, five feet, five and one half inches high, weighing 158 pounds, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve with his mother’s consent on 6 August 1942. He gave his age as 17, and went to Parris Island, South Carolina, for recruit training.

    During his rifle training Pvt Lucas qualified as a sharpshooter. He was next assigned to the Marine Barracks, U.S. Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, Florida. In June 1943 he was transferred to the 21st Replacement Battalion at New River, North Carolina, and one month later he went to the 25th Replacement Battalion, where he successfully completed schooling which qualified him as a heavy machine gun crewman.

    He left the United States on 4 November 1943, and the following month he joined the 6th Base Depot of the V Amphibious Corps at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He was advanced to private first class on 29 January 1944.

    With statements to his buddies that he was going to join a combat organization, PFC Lucas walked out of camp on 10 January 1945, wearing a khaki uniform and carrying his dungarees and field shoes in a roll under his arm.

    He was declared absent without leave (AWOL) when he failed to return that night and a month later, when there was still no sign of him, he was declared a “deserter,” and a reward offered for his apprehension. He was also reduced to the rank of private at that time.

    He stowed away on board the USS Deuel which was transporting units of the 5th Marine Division into combat. He surrendered to the senior troop officer present on 8 February dressed in neat, clean dungarees. He was allowed to remain, and shortly after he was transferred to Headquarters Company, 5th Marine Division. He reached his 17th birthday while at sea, six days before he earned the Medal of Honor.

    On the day following the landing at Iwo Jima, he was creeping through a twisting ravine with three other men of his rifle team when the Japanese opened a hand grenade attack on them. The men jumped into two shallow foxholes. A grenade landed in Pvt Lucas’ foxhole and he threw his body over it. Another one came hurtling in, and he reached out and pulled it beneath himself shortly before the explosion occurred, which lifted him off the ground and blew parts of his clothing into the air.

    He was left for dead by his companions, although he was miraculously still alive. Severely wounded in the right arm and wrist, right leg and thigh, and chest, Pvt Lucas had undoubtedly saved his companions from serious injury and possible death.

    He was evacuated and treated at various field hospitals prior to his arrival at San Francisco, California, 28 March 1945. The mark of desertion was removed from his record in August of that year while he was a patient at the U.S. Naval Hospital at Charleston, South Carolina.

    He was discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve because of disability resulting from his wounds on 18 September 1945, following his reappointment to the rank of private first class.

    In addition to the Medal of Honor, PFC Lucas was awarded the Purple Heart; Presidential Unit Citation; Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with one bronze star; American Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal.

27. P.C.:
    29 June 2006, on 5:25 am

    I am going to add that to this day Mr. Lucas has the sand of Iwo Jima permanently embedded into his skin, I have seen it. He is a very nice man and very interesting to talk to. This was one of the best interviews I have been a part of.

28. skribb:
    29 June 2006, on 6:12 am

    I’m sorry all; I wrote this loooong post and then, upon sumbission, WordPress said the database was down. Cool.

    Maybe I’ll rewrite (what I remember) some other time.

29. jimmer:
    29 June 2006, on 8:36 pm

    Thanks PC

30. Eve:
    30 June 2006, on 6:07 pm

    Great interview, P.C.

31. Sean:
    5 July 2006, on 1:21 am

    P.C.: Sorry for the delayed response. Great comment. I’m pretty sure I have actually read about Jacklyn Harrell Lucas before, in books that discuss the very subject at hand. The story rings a loud bell. Here it is on Answers.com. Very cool that you got to interview him.

    I was playing devil’s advocate, of course. I still believe there is such a thing as altruism.

    Does that make me some kind of a blind “believer” or delusional? I don’t know, but I know I don’t want to be a nihilist. I mean, shit, we atheists need something to believe in, right? I choose the better side of the human animal.

32. Sean:
    15 July 2006, on 11:08 am

    V: A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. A symbol, in and of itself is powerless, but with enough people behind it, blowing up a building can change the world.

    Evey Hammond: I wish I could believe that was possible, but every time I’ve seen this world change, it’s always been for the worse.

33. P.C.:
    15 July 2006, on 2:52 pm

    Sean said : “I don’t want to be a nihilist.”

    I try not to be pessimistic about my world view and the future. I am a total scifi freak that loves Gene Roddenberry and what he concieved within Star Trek. I have always been a fan of that show and its followers, these gave me hope as a child and still do to this day that one day things may be like that.