the meaning of "altruism" in ordinary English, aside from technical discussions of Comte's writings, never seems to have been much like "living for others and not caring at all about oneself"
I disagree. Altruism is almost always put in opposition to egoism. If you care about your family because you love them, and put their needs above the needs of others, that's less altruistic than putting the needs of another family over the needs of your own.
I think Rand is correct on the current usage. One is altruistic to the extent that one sacrifices your own interests to the interests of others.
You can always leave yourself an out with "at all about yourself". Yes, even most people who praise altruism will allow you a moment to do something for your own happiness. How generous they are! But you are praised to the extent you sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of others, and condemned to the extent that you don't. It's not how much happiness you produce in others, it's how much happiness it costs you that matters. If you do exactly as you please but thereby still make millions happier, you are not an altruist by the usual calculations.
Altruism is almost always put in opposition to egoism.
If you think that contradicts what I was saying, then I fear you have misunderstood my point. Altruism is (according to what I think was Comte's usage) the opposite of egoism in the same way as loving is the opposite of hating: they point in opposite directions but the same person can do both -- even, in unusual cases, both at once.
A single action will rarely be both altruistic and egoistic, just as a single action is rarely both loving and hating. But "altruism" doesn't mean "never th...
Diana Hsieh interviews Dr. Doug McGuff about avoidable injuries and deaths.
He's an emergency room physician in South Carolina, so he's pretty much just talking about what he's seen-- different regions have different characteristic injuries.
He says that you're safest in the largest car you can afford, which raises some interesting ethical issues.
There's a fair amount about the risks of getting overfocused on getting something done. This adds tremendously to the hazards of using ladders.
Also, did you know trees can go sproing? One of hazards of chainsaws is that a good bit of energy might be stored in a twisted tree trunk. Don't just know your physics, apply it!
More generally, there are machines and situations (ATVs, chainsaws, airplanes, skiing, etc.) which tend to make people feel more competent than they are.
On the other hand, injuries from rock climbing and horseback riding are less common than you might think. I don't know why the ancestral environment didn't give people a reflexive distaste against diving into water. Perhaps people back then had too much sense to dive much.
One of the pieces of advice-- to get out of stressful relationships-- is too general. This is mostly a good idea, but from what I've read, leaving a violent relationship can lead to more risk of violence. It's still a good idea to leave, but it's important to leave cautiously.
Both McGuff and Hsieh are objectivists, so some of the discussion might be in mind-killer territory.
Edited to add: It's possible that objectivism would be better discussed under a new post. It's certain that there's a bunch of interesting material in the podcast, and avoidable accidents are worth discussing.
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