

Open Source Altruism - steiza
http://blog.google.org/2010/07/open-source-altruism.html

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maxharris
"Altruism, n. - the belief in or practice of _disinterested and selfless_
concern for the well-being of others."

Helping Gregory Mchopa isn't altruistic because the helper has an interest in
seeing him succeed. The helper is enriched by Mchopa's artwork and admires
him, and he feels proud to have helped bring Mchopa's and his work to a larger
audience.

A truly altruistic action would require the helper to perform an action that
had no such benefit for himself whatsoever; only then would it have no trace
of selfishness. However, performing an action that has no benefit ultimately
comes at the expense of the altruist because his life is finite in length and
is contigent upon a limited course of action. Although they vary widely in
magnitude, all actions either advance a person's life or are harmful in their
effect.

Such truly altruistic actions are immoral, and cannot be applied consistently
to all people. If altruism is the ultimate rule for being good, then Mchopa's
helper should dedicate himself fully to giving himself up to others. But the
recipients must then also give themselves up completely to others, leaving an
endless chain with no one to recieve the benefit.

The alternative is rational egoism: do what is best for yourself over the
long-term, which is the entire course of your life. To do this requires you to
be as _selfish_ as is possible: to use reason to guide your actions, and trade
value for value with everyone that is valuable^. I think that for many people,
helping someone like Gregory Mchopa is exactly such a trade.

^A specific value presupposes a valuer, so it only makes sense to speak of
something being of valuable for a specific person. What is valuable to you is
not necessarily valuable to me, but what we have in common is that we can
employ the same method (reason) to determine what is valuable to each of us.

[This is beside the point, but it is worth noting that as long as a person is
capable of reasoning, they are capable of producing value for some group of
people. The number of people without any ability to reason at a level required
to support themselves in a totally free society is vanishingly small. For
those people truly unable to support themselves, selfish charity is more than
enough to sustain them - rational egoists find more value in helping these few
(in a manner that they choose) than in watching them die in the streets.]

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lukeqsee
Somebody needs to brush up on their definition of altruism.

 _Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others. (wikipedia)_

Selflessness doesn't post to a blog about itself. :)

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sprout
Selfishness would be not sharing knowledge of this with others, since keeping
silent would make people less altruistic (humans being strong pack animals who
tend to avoid doing things others are not also doing.)

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lukeqsee
Then none of it is _true_ altruism.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing; however, as a technicality, altruism isn't
the correct word.

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sprout
Well, then there's no such thing as altruism.

But generally I think such quibbling is silly. It's impossible to completely
suppress the ego.

