i understand and agree that he is unamerican in the sense of the "american ideal" but outside looking in, he is a completely typical product of american culture. he's reality TV, fame for fame's sake, wealthy without working, a hustler, the ideal jerry springer guest, the ideal wrestling guest, the son of racist nepotism, performative altruism (and then defrauds his own charities), he pathologically cannot accept being wrong/defers all fault to anyone else ("whatever, i do what i want"), he's weaponized ignorance, he's "hilariously" rapey, he's illiterate, a proud philistine, he's vapid pageantry, he's a christian who know nothing of religion/spirituality, he's 4chan, he's 8chan, he's tacky style with complete lack of substance, he's the personification of "fake it 'till you make it". these are all lessons i've seen repeated ad nauseam from american TV, films, music, podcasts, youtube stars, etc. to the point where they're past cliché that they're now entrenched americana.

i know that isn't the typical american but that is the most typical american america has sold to itself and the rest of the world.

Your video, Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell: Egoistic Altruism, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Excellent. But, I have a reaction to your (Green's?) text in the description.

1. Nostalgia is a motivator. But I think it tends to be a *strong* motivator only of individuals, not of collective societies. If Trump has nostalgia for fossil fuels (personally I think his motivations lie elsewhere), the good news is that that nostalgia won't be very contagious to American citizens. At least not for long.

People like Elon Musk / Tesla are making it clear that electric and renewables are the sexy high-tech future. That appeal to our vanity will be much more effective as a "carrot" motivation, as compared to a "stick" with carbon taxes etc.


2. This essentially boils down to an industrial version of Isolationism. Trump represents a bigger push in that direction by far compared to being motivated by nostalgia. BUT, I think that trying to explain that resistance in him and others purely through that anti-globalization lens misses some things.

Just as nostalgia is a better motivator for individuals than societies, altruism (if you believe it can exist) functions the same way. And that's 90% of what the Paris Accords are: altruism.

On paper, it makes sense for us as individuals in the US to acknowledge that we got a disproportionate level of advancement out of fossil fuel usage through our history. As individuals, we can see the undeniable truth in that. But ask us to act -- collectively -- on that and watch as our collective altruistic tendencies are drastically reduced compared to the sum of our individual altruistic tendencies.

That's not really evil, that's just human nature. But it is precisely the reason that I feel that encouraging people like Elon Musk is by far the superior way to lead us into the future. Tesla makes cars that are better than competing ICE vehicles for many/most use-cases. And not "better" in the sense that our individual sense of altruism gets triggered to reward our brain's pleasure center because we've prevented some Pacific islander's house from getting wiped out in a sea level rise by buying one. No, better in real, measurable criteria: less expensive to operate, better performance / top speed / acceleration, features ... potentially even panty-dropping sexiness. That shit can motivate us as a collective society much more reliably than altruism.

And that's why I think it is more important to encourage the Elon Musks of the future than it is to get TOO overly concerned about the Donald Trumps of the present. Although admittedly, there's certainly ways to try to do both.

But altruism is how you portray the works of the church, but you're correct, it's absolutely NOT the right word. They do 'good' for rewards, it's the same reason religious people do 'good deeds', just different 'rewards'.
If atheists did 'good deeds' but required conversion to atheism/abandonment of religious beliefs before offering needed assistance, that would be quite wrong. That's usually how the church, and religious charities work....it's NEVER how atheist charities work.

Religions are evil, not just the churches that use them. Yours starts with instructions to murder, torture, commit incest, enslave non believers, and ends with threats of eternal torture if you don't submit mind body and soul. All that from the bible, which is not a church, but is a doctrine.
EDIT: Religion is terrorism. It is a way to control the actions of others through threat of never ending supernatural torture if they don't do as the church/the preacher/your grandmother/your political party/whomever is using religion says.

You don't need any religion to live honorably, sacrificially, or lovingly. In fact all those things are easier without the blind worship and certitude that 'your religion has the right answer' (to the exclusion of all other 'answers') that all religions insists on, and they are nearly impossible with religion. History has recorded that consistently since cuneiform.

"Doing these things as a prelude to proselytizing means they aren't altruistic..."

Altruism isn't the right word. When people help others to their hurt, that is called agape love, a word the Christian community has owned for 2000 years. You're right of course, that more than a few churches out there are always trying to figure out how to get more members, more money etc. But that isn't all the churches, or even nearly so. For instance the churches in this community dont care who goes where; they all work together and no one is taking the credit for it. This is just one counter example to the broad brush strokes you're painting here.

I think you need a little more nuance here too, newtboy; for instance, would you say it is wrong for atheists to do good deeds in the name of atheism? Or, for the red cross to air commercials showing their accomplishments so they could raise more money to expand their mission in the world?

"And yet, here you are calling attention to yourself (and them), so you proved your statement wrong by stating it publicly. Oops! ;-)"

I didn't mention what I do newtboy, but I have no problem calling attention to the righteous who glorify God through their lives.

"Churches are for profit institutions.."

The church according to the bible is a non-profit organization. Whether churches in America reflect that or not is another question entirely. I know for my church, and almost any other church, you can request to see how the church spends its money year by year. None of the churches I have dealings with are making "profits"

"Once again I would ask, why do you question your god's clear wish that I (and others) not believe in him..."

Jesus Christ died for our sins, yours and mine. God already demonstrated His love for us while we were sinners, now the only question is, will you reciprocate? The insanity of the question posed to Stephan Fry, ie what would you say to God, is exposed by the answer "How dare you!" by Stephan. It seems that people believe God is a man who needs to explain Himself, who has something to hide. Yet, Stephan and every other human being have a lot to hide; the brutal and ugly truth of how we have all lived our lives here.

It's easy for a man to say to people who know nothing about him that he will shake his fist at God when they meet. Yet, what will he do when all of his lawless deeds are exposed and the secrets he has kept from everyone are brought to light? All the fight will go out of him immediately, this I guarantee you. Yet, this in itself is still ridiculous, considering that even merely being in Gods presence is enough to make the most hardened sinner fall to his knees and weep uncontrollably. But people won't be weeping because God loves them on that day, they will be weeping and gnashing their teeth after being confronted by the fact that they have missed the boat for eternity.

"Shirley.."

My name isn't Sherlock..

"Doing 100 good deeds and one incredibly evil deed makes one evil. No church in history has ever reached that level of goodness. Churches are evil. I hope that clears things up."

I'm glad you understand what I have been trying to explain to the sift for years; a relative goodness is no goodness at all. If you set fire to someones home, and then built 27 orphanages, would people call you good? Why is it then that people think that all of our good deeds should cause God to forgive us for a single sin? This is the reason Jesus died for us, because we can't earn Gods forgiveness and our good deeds can't erase our bad ones. Could you ever go to court and say "your honor, although I commited this crime I have done over 1000 hours of community service in my lifetime, so please dismiss the case; will that ever happen? That wouldn't be justice, and if God threw out our case without true justice, He wouldn't be a just judge.

What would I say about churches who have done evil? These are institutions; the true church is the body of Christ, of which every born again believer is a member of. That is what is happening in my community, is that no one cares about the institution of the church; they are just being the church. The reward is simply this, to serve God honorably by living a sacrificial life predicated on sacrificial love.

*promote some awesome ant altruism.
(First rescue not until 12:20, the second almost 10 min later, I can't believe I watched the whole thing!)

Nailed it dude!

The only angle I feel hasn't really come up so far is the idea that private enterprise and public governance could easily be regarded as two manifestations of the same "real" social dynamic: Establishment/challenger (or master/slave if you want to get fully Hegelian about it)

Like, why do we even develop governmental systems in the 1st place?

I have yet to conceive a better answer than: "to curb the destructive excesses of private wealth/power."

Why would we champion personal freedom? I would say: "to curb the destructive excesses of public wealth/power".

Or something to that effect at the very least. The idea of a society with either absolute personal, or absolute collective sovereignty seems hellish to me. And probably unworkable to boot!

There seems to me a tendency in the history of societies for these two types of power to dance either side of equilibrium as the real power struggle unfolds i.e. between reigning establishment and challenger power groups/paradigms.

Right now the establishment is both economic and governmental. The corruption is mutually supporting. Corporations buy and control governments, governments facilitate corporations ruling the market and continuing to be able to buy them.

The circle jerk @blankfist IMHO is between government and private dynasty and moreover I strongly believe that in a vacuum, one will always create the other.

Pure collectivism will naturally breed an individualist challenger and visa versa.

People are at their best I think when balancing self interest and altruism. Too much of either tends to hurt others around you and diminish ones capacity to grow and adapt. (being nice is no good if you lack the will and capacity to get shit done)

It seems natural that the ideal way of organising society would always balance collective state power, with private personal power.

Libertarianism (even the superior non anarchist version) defangs the state too much IMHO. Some collectivist projects such as education, scientific research and exploration I think tend to be better served by public direction. But more importantly I expect the state to referee the market, just as I expect public transparency to referee the state.

Total crowbar separation between the three: public officials cannot legally own or control private wealth and cannot live above standard of their poorest citizens. Private citizens cannot inherit wealth legally, only earn and create it. The state cannot legally hold any secret or perform any function of government outside public view unless it is to prepare sensitive legal proceedings (which must then be disclosed in full when actioned).

In the age of global communications this kind of transparency may for the first time be a workable solution (it's already near impossible to keep a lid on most political scandals and this is very early days). There is also the possibility of a steadily de-monetised market as crowdfunding and crowdsourcing production models start to become more advanced and practical than traditional market dynamics. e.g. kickstarter style collective investment in place of classical entrepreneurial investment.

The benefits and dangers of both capitalism and socialism here would be trending towards diffusion amongst the populace.

And then there's the whole Meritocracy vs Democracy thing, but that's really getting into another topic and I've probably already gone on too long now.

Much love

I'm guessing something along the lines of how altruism is unnatural or some other such nonsense.

Thanks a bunch Buzz Killington. Way to ruin my dreams of altruism in bees.

But that's the thing... I can say I've done as much; hell, I've done much more to help more people and I continue to do it everyday. But what I don't do is turn it into marketing in order to sell myself or a product.

Instead, I take that bit of egotism that altruism does indeed feed and feel a little better about myself. I remain humbled by all the problems I couldn't fix and the people who inspire me, and I keep doing my work without self-aggrandizement or the need to draw attention to myself.

It is important that Connor had a good day and felt great. It is important that his father got to give his son something uplifting and wonderful in his short time on Earth. It is NOT important that the WWE tell us all about it so that we will think better of them and buy their product.

Meh, I dunno Aaronfr. I do understand your point of view and the cynical part of me is turned away by it, but really, it's a win-win. For instance, most people don't donate to charities out of genuine altruism so much as to *feel* as though they're altruistic, and that's really a perfectly acceptable reason. Every company that "donates a portion to charity" and has pink yogurt lids or whatever are doing it for marketing, but that's okay too because they're still donating money.

If that's what it takes, that's what it takes. These things work both ways. Maybe this kid took advantage of the WWE's desire for free publicity to get his dying wish fulfilled. If giving people a ribbon to wear on their lapel so they can stroke stroke their ego in public for the rest of the day brings in more donations, it's worth the extra cost of the ribbons.

Hey listen, it's great that they did something nice for a kid who was dying of cancer. While I didn't weep, and I don't like WWE anymore because of this, I can empathize, what with being a father and all.

But why was the only person interviewed for this other than the father, the Chief Branding Officer of WWE? Because it's SADVERTISING and they've taken a nice, caring thing that the WWE and its employees did and have tried to use it to manipulate you into liking them, thereby robbing all altruism from the act.

I'm sad for the kid, I feel for the father, but F the WWE.

Meh, everyone is either agnostic, lying or mad. As @newtboy said, gnosticism means "knowing". No-one knows for certain that there is or isn't a god. Therefore, everyone is agnostic.

Which makes it a fucking boring position to take.

Gnosticism at least has the virtue of being interesting. You know there's a god? ok, why? Ahh, you've heard voices.... right. Just slip on this comfy jacket... yeah, the arms are kinda long, but don't worry.

The question is almost never "do you know there is or isn't a god", it's "do you believe". And in that sense, almost everyone has an answer one way or the other. You may choose to believe in a god because you feel that things like compassion, rainbows and the majesty of the universe are evidence of his/her existence. Or you choose not to believe because you feel that these things are evidence of group altruism, refraction and some really amazingly weird ass physics.

Yeah, be humble and admit you could be wrong, but FFS, make a choice.

Oh and @Yogi, I wonder how kindly you'd feel toward religion if you had a well funded organisation who had dedicated themselves to discrediting your life's work (and with the most trivial nonsense as well).

And that is why we have "atheist evangelists". Because experience has shown that if you don't push back, certain theist elements will gradually start to encroach on things that are important.

@bobknight33
cognitive dissonance+circular logic=your comment

you state its all the governments fault.
you give an example of massive amounts of "aid"

care to clarify that position?

because i actually agree with you but i suspect it is for different reasons.

when we look at government subsidies (welfare/aid),the largest recipient by far is american corporations.we even subsidize CEO pay,not to mention subsidizing their slave wage work force.

so can you tell me who the TRUE welfare queens are?

and did you just equate our government and its corporate socialism to being "kind,nice and trying to do the right thing"?
and that somehow this government altruism is bad for capitalism?

seriously?

it wouldnt happen to have anything to do with the army of corporate lobbyists that stampede congress/senate and the judiciary now would it?

all with their hands out.looking for some tasty welfare.

noooooooo...corporations are GOOD for the economy!
they are the "job creators" (like wall mart) and all that extra profit will rain down upon us common folk like mana from heaven.

here is how our current system plays out:
socialism for the rich.
capitalism for the poor.

we dont have capitalism.
our government is bought.
they no longer work for you,nor me.we have become irrelevant.

capitalism.
sounds like a great system.
we should try it sometime.

From Wikipedia:
William R. (Bill) Bartmann is a consumer advocate and the founder and CEO of CFS2, Inc, a debt-collection company based in Tulsa, OK. Previously he was the founder and CEO of Commercial Financial Services Inc, a debt collection company based in Tulsa, OK that operated from 1986 to 1999.

What this video doesn't talk about is the original CFS, also founded by Bartmann. I used to work for that company, for 2 days. The original CFS was not, in any way, a nice company. Agents were required to stand during all calls so that they would have the mental upper-hand while berating the people they were attempting collection from. This included threats of contacting current employers, personal attacks and even attacks relating to an individuals ability sustain their family. This was the training I received and why I only worked there 2 days.

I have no doubt that this video accurately portrays the people and the tactics they use now but make no mistake, they only do things this way because they have decided it is more financially viable. This is not altruism, it was simply a winning business tactic.