Testing Chat Thread

[Aaron]

Man Mittens donates because he has to, either pressure from the church, to make himself look good or to manipulate his taxes. Thats selfish, using the system because he wants to be Pres.

Donating to a cause when your at our financial level, whether your effected personally or not can actually be a burden, leaving you short. Thats not selfish. Its not selfish to want other people to be spared your pain.

[Oxymoron]

Is one of these guys seriously saying that blood donation is selfish ?

[Losonti Tokash]

aaron because empathy allows you to imagine yourself in someone's else's position and try to understand how they'd feel in a given situation, any act of empathy and kindness toward another human being is narcissistic selfishness
-a shithead

Oxy: bean is saying that donations to any cause that affects you or anyone you know is inherently selfish

the example used was a cancer death in phant's family means that his family is selfish by donating money to cancer research

meanwhile bean doesn't think donations to heart disease research is selfish because the leading cause of death in america isn't universal enough, same with suicide prevention

[joviwan]

?
flibbadob. Blip-blop-bleep!

Red Dwarf in the hizzy.

[Oxymoron]

What I find strange, and I'll say right now that I haven't read that discussion over there and don't plan to, is what follow :

They say that giving something for free because it makes you feel good is selfish ? Let's admit it, for the sake of argument. What now ? Does doing something good for selfish reasons make the end result any less good ?

If you take care of your kids because they are the most precious thing in your life and that you would feel lost and empty without them, this would be selfish in that framework. But would that be a bad thing ?

[Oxymoron]

After all, isn't Capitalism, the current framework that determine our lives, inherently based on the the assumption that every actor of the "market" (read : society at large) is Selfish, and every decision taken out of selfish interest ? Or am I misunderstanding something fundamental here ?

[adr]

There are a lot of people who argue that the only reason anyone does anything is for themselves. And really they might have a point.... but is that kind of argument meaningful? Does it actually change the conclusion of the on-topic argument? (whatever the hell that is, Mitt Romney? Cancer? even the charity is selfish by some definition, who really cares?)

I think it is more mental masturbation than anything else.

[Oxymoron]

Most definitely, yes.

My point was : who care why you do something good, as long as you do something good ?

[Aaron]

Fuck knows man, maybe so they can feel superior?

It was kind of an argument in search of a debate if you lnow what I mean. But its inspired me to take a break from teo, I'm falling behind stuff here anyways.

[adr]

My point was : who care why you do something good, as long as you do something good ?

In general, why can be important for two reasons to me:

1) if you understand why someone is doing it, you might be able to encourage them to do more, or try another approach that will work better toward what they want.

For example, if people only give when there's something in it for them, you can encourage giving by offering rewards of some sort (tax breaks, certificates of awesome, whatever) for charity.


2) it is useful why you are making a decision to understand your thought process, to see if you could be thinking about it in a better way, or if your current process has some contradiction. (If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons this time, maybe next time, your wrong reasons will lead to the wrong thing. Don't want that.)

[Oxymoron]

Fuck knows man, maybe so they can feel superior?

It was kind of an argument in search of a debate if you lnow what I mean. But its inspired me to take a break from teo, I'm falling behind stuff here anyways.

Good on you, man, that place is toxic. I've tried to go back lurking there a few times these last weeks, by curiosity, but I had to close the tabs after a few minutes each times... Even Testing's a wasteland from what I've been able to see.

Oh, and while we're speaking of falling behind on stuff... *point in the general direction of the Dark Heresy threads*


ADR : Well, yeah, if you want to encourage some behaviors it is indeed quite essential to know why people act as they do. But what I mean is, from what I feel of what has been said here (and I may be totally wrong), and from what I've been able to judge from real people I frequent, it seems that people tend to see selfishness, in itself, as a bad thing - or at least a shameful thing. And, I don't know... that makes me uncomfortable. That seems wrong to me. Like denying an essential part of ourselves, an almost Puritan aspiration. And I hate Puritanism.

[Aaron]

Your right, I need to get that going again.

[weemadando]

I am not even touching that fucking thread.

I want to.

And that's why I shouldn't.

[Bakustra]

"I suggest you expand your readings a bit to the culture of India. There you might find two religions known as Hinduism and Buddhism that share the concept of Dāna. That of giving without expecting reward. The concept of charity only being possible when no return is expected or anticipated. To give your food to a beggar is Dāna. To bring that beggar back to work your fields in exchange for food is not. If you expand your search further you will find Judaism with the concept of Tzedakah which holds that second highest form of it is anonymously give donations to unknown recipients. If you wish I can provide links about the various Catholic writings about the concept of Charity and the morality of giving.

My "ridiculous personal definition" forms the heart of several religions statements about how to be moral when giving. It is one the "true" forms of charity in cognitive psychology as Ziggy pointed out. There is a science of morality and discovering a code of universal morality is one of those goals of science."

I am laughing shrilly right now. Literal shrieks of fuckin' laughter. Lolololololololololololololololol. "There is a science of morality and discovering a code of universal morality is one of those goals of science". Oh, my fuckin' ribs. Phant, Los, don't let this joker get you down- I have used my status as a undergrad student in the natural sciences to carefully discern that Mr Baen Books is so full of shit he needs toilet paper to clean out his ears. And Ziggy Stardust, quite apart from being a shame to Bowie lovers everywhere, is little more than a braying jackass. A pox on them and all their distortions of noble traditions to taunt the charitable.

[Civil War Man]

For a group that spends a lot of time shitting on Ayn Rand's philosophies, Bean certainly seems to be agreeing with her in that thread.

As I mentioned in one of the goddamn sdn threads, between the racism, the sexism, and now this, they've gotten extremely right-wing while publicly touting themselves to be anti-right-wing.

[Aaron]

I donate fairly regularly to CHEO, the kids hospital in Ottawa. Now one might say it's because my kids might need their services and that may be true, but I also know what a farce the budgeting and fund-raising is for these hospitals because Mom was a director at the one in Vancouver. I specifically request that my money go to capital equipment purchases.

As these guys get older, I would have thought they would move beyond the 2 dimensional thinking but I guess not.

[Metatwaddle]

oh man i am not going to look at this thread

anyway might i suggest responding to this nonsense by giving a small sum to whatever the fuck charity you want

i don't think anyone who benefits from your (general your) donation gives a shit whether or not you did it because of someone in your family or whatever

[Aaron]

oh man i am not going to look at this thread

anyway might i suggest responding to this nonsense by giving a small sum to whatever the fuck charity you want

i don't think anyone who benefits from your (general your) donation gives a shit whether or not you did it because of someone in your family or whatever

Exactly. When I had my transfusion, the motivation of the donor was and is irrelevant.

[Oxymoron]

I don't want to go all elitist and shit, but I have the impression that a lot of people have difficulties with injecting nuances in their world views - or viewing things from a different perspective for that matter.



By the way, I give my blood as often as I can, not because it makes me feel good inside, but simply because I like it.
(And most of the time, it goes to pediatry, too - apparently I'm so dull my blood is baby-quality )

[RyanThunder]

That's pretty cool that you basically save babies and small children, if you think about it.

[Aaron]

I don't want to go all elitist and shit, but I have the impression that a lot of people have difficulties with injecting nuances in their world views - or viewing things from a different perspective for that matter.



By the way, I give my blood as often as I can, not because it makes me feel good inside, but simply because I like it.
(And most of the time, it goes to pediatry, too - apparently I'm so dull my blood is baby-quality )

That isn't elitism, elitism is shit like "I'm a soldier and my experiences mean I'm better then you."

Having a nuanced or a grey view of the world means your a human, perhaps you have a little more sense then most.

[Oxymoron]

Ryan : I know, right ? That's another motivation to never do drug, smoke, or to drink reasonably


Aaron : I don't know, man. I just feel cynical. Basically the only reason why I'm so "optimist" and always try to see the best in people is because somehow I know that if I were to let cynicism take over, that'd be... bad. Like crazy, bad-depression, fuck-this-world-I'm-outta-here bad.

[Oxymoron]

Also, by elitism I meant that by doing that remark I was kinda placing myself above the mass of people I was generalizing about, even if that was not what I wished.

[adr]

i've never actually given blood. blargh being poked is just..... blargh. i dislike it enough when i have to give just a little bit for a medical test.

now the weird thing is if someone specifically asked me for blood in an emergency of some sort i'm sure i'd do it

and since the blood banks are used for exactly those kinds of situations, logically, i should act the same way in either. but i guess the responsibility is deluded or something cuz i still say blargh to the needles

[Agent Bert Macklin]

Do you want to know how much I care about helping people? I gave blood back in 2010 that triggered anemia and caused me to go to the ICU. I could have died had I not gone, which I was contemplating because I didn't have health insurance at the time. Also, I did not know I had a fissure (no health insurance to get it checked out), which was causing me to lose blood. I gave blood for selfish reasons, apparently.