TheOtherDave comments on Why Don't People Help Others More? - Less Wrong

36 Post author: peter_hurford 13 August 2012 11:34PM

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Comment author: TheOtherDave 14 September 2012 02:57:44AM 0 points [-]

To really impact the level of altruism in our culture you would do what you could to steer people away from the school system.

Would you predict that students raised outside of the school system are, as a group, more altruistic than those raised within it?

Comment author: lloyd 14 September 2012 03:32:51AM 0 points [-]

I wouldn't make such a broad prediction, but it is easy to see schooling decreases personal authority, without which the individual cannot act altruistically or selfishly (I argue both are the same, but depend on what one considers self - John Livingston's 'Rogue Primate' expounds on this concept). I would suggest looking at the Amish culture as a case study. Historically, you can contrast early America (that of Franklin, Jefferson, Edison and the other American pioneers) and Hitler's Germany ( the Nazi system was adopted from the new American schools and called the Indiana system by Germans so I have read). I would, based on these and other examples predict that the students raised outside the school system would have greater potential for many qualities including altruism, but that manifestation of these qualities will vary by environment and individual.