LESSWRONG
LW

All of Lee_Smith's Comments + Replies

What level of compassion do you consider normal, expected, mandatory etc. ?
Lee_Smith00

Interesting, someone decided to give my post a negative hit. Would that someone care to explain why? If I am wrong show me. If it is a matter of political correctness then teach me why your philosophy is better than mine. If you believe that I am an idiot please explain to me how you came to that conclusion.

I am willing to learn and I am also quite willing to admit my error, if there be one.

Reply
What level of compassion do you consider normal, expected, mandatory etc. ?
Lee_Smith00

" the goal would be to find a way to make more people derive genuine enjoyment from helping people." I can agree with this.

An interesting thing that I've noticed is when people take the concept of helping others into their identity it can result in them helping others to the point of being detrimental to themselves. They get hooked on both the pleasure of helping as well as the pleasure of fulfilling their identity as a helper.

I prefer what was said concerning Voldemort in HPMoR. (i'm paraphrasing) He could be nice because he had no moral oblig... (read more)

Reply
What level of compassion do you consider normal, expected, mandatory etc. ?
Lee_Smith-20

I am of the opinion that everyone always acts in their own self-interest and that pure altruism is a myth. People (including myself) like to think that they are much more virtuous than they actually are. A simple example: would you give your own dinner to a hungry child that is not related to you if you haven't eaten in 14 days? Probably not. Why? The personal need for food outweighs the good feeling that you would give yourself for helping a child that is not related to you. It's an ugly thought but much more realistic than the thought of a starving pers... (read more)

Reply
0Lee_Smith
Interesting, someone decided to give my post a negative hit. Would that someone care to explain why? If I am wrong show me. If it is a matter of political correctness then teach me why your philosophy is better than mine. If you believe that I am an idiot please explain to me how you came to that conclusion. I am willing to learn and I am also quite willing to admit my error, if there be one.
0[anonymous]
My opinion is that this is a solved problem: pure altruism is obviously a myth, but useful altruism if you like to help people and it is in your self-interest to do things you like. This is sometimes called "warm fuzzies". The issue is that Kant fucked things up for us a bit, Kant somehow managed to convince people that it is better if you help people without liking to help them because it is a more pure virtue or some similar bullshit, and centuries later somehow this craziness is still not forgotten. I propose we "kill" that sort of idea already. Ethics or altruism is not some kind of virtue without enjoyment, rather the goal would be to find a way to make more people derive genuine enjoyment from helping people and help them feel this is the 100% correct form o altruism and there is no virtue needed to have beyond that.