#altrusim

[neurosciencenews]

Neural Link Between Altruism and Empathy Toward Strangers

Study is the first to show a clear link between real-world altruism and empathy for the pain of strangers.

The research is in Psychological Science. (full access paywall)

[pawspurses]

Words of Wisdom by Mary Kay Ash January 25

KINDNESSSOME PEOPLE FEEL ALTRUISM IN A COMPANY CONFLICTS WITH THE PROFIT OBJECTIVE. ACTUALLY, THE TWO ARE HARMONIOUS, BECAUSE WHEN YOUR EMPLOYEES DO WELL, THEY BECOME CONTENT, ENTHUSIASTIC AND LOYAL, RESULTING IN A HEALTHY BOTTOM LINE. Read the full article

[skeptic42]

Objectivism

So, I’m beginning to look into objectivism.  On the surface, it has a few good things to say and can be helpful to overcome some issues.  I came across an article about how a gay man avoided the struggles of most gay men. He attributes this partly to the way he was raised, but exposure to objectivism helped cement it. This is a bit ironic considering Ayn Rand viewed homosexuality as “disgusting.” He was able to look beyond her opinion to separate it from her philosophy, where others were unable to.

Personally, I don’t like Ayn Rand, she was an egotistical piece of shit at the center of a cult of personality that heralded her as the smartest person in the world. As long as you agreed with her on everything, you were fine. Ayn Rand could not stand anyone disagreeing with her.

Ayn Rand was also not really a philosophy, despite being regarded as a philosopher by her followers, just not anyone else.  She could philosophize.  So can I.  I’m not a philosopher.  Reading other things about her, she doesn’t defend against possible objections (note that she doesn’t like people disagreeing with her, so why bother?), she’s not consistent, it’s more a hodgepodge of her opinions, and her conclusions don’t follow her premises.

I’ll tackle two things in this:

Altruism

From The Objective Standard

And not only is the altruist’s morality the same in kind; the consequences of accepting it are the same in kind, too. To the extent that a person acts selflessly, he thereby thwarts his life and happiness. He might not die because of it, but he certainly will not live fully; he will not make the most of his life; he will not achieve the kind of happiness that is possible to him.

Reading up on what various people write about it, altruism is sacrificing the self, but they present altruism kind of in an infinite regressive way (altruism all the way down), essentially a strawman, calling it a logical fallacy.  When you misrepresent something, it’s very easy to destroy. Which is what every pundit I’ve come across does.

There are varying degrees of altruism from helping a pregnant woman change a tire (which I did) to literally jumping onto a grenade (something I read about).  According to objectivism, altruism is self-sacrificing and goes against the morality of egotism.  Me sacrificing 10 minutes of sitting in front of the TV to help a pregnant woman, greatly reduces her suffering, yet doesn’t diminish the fullness of my life.  The man who jumped on a grenade saved the lives of 21 Navy Seals when a grenade was dropped.  He was going to die.  Period!  He saved 21 people, and a massive amount of suffering for their families.

Altruism does not call for you to make yourself a doormat.  That’s where objectivism is completely and totally wrong.  There might be people who think they must be that way (I’ve seen this in religion), but it’s certainly not doctrine or even presented that way.  There are people who let others walk all over them, this is closer to a mental disorder than a requirement.

Selfishness

According to morality of egotism, you must be selfish and your prime motive is your pleasure.  (I’m paraphrasing, not trying to strawman objectivism.)  Rand uses the term rational egoism.  I suppose because selfishness sounds bad.  I’m also guessing she’s riding Freud’s coattails on the whole psychoanalysis of the ego.  Rational egoism is putting yourself first and allowing others to practice the same.  There’s also no force involved.  The problem is altruism is necessary to some extent in society.  We all have to get along and we all need to be individuals. At times those come into conflict.  When your rational egoism takes precedence and it conflicts with the rational egoism of another, what do you do?  Altruism, or a least a derivative form of it, comes into play, but that means sacrificing self, which you’re not supposed to do.  

I’m not sure how rational egoism resolves this.  Maybe if objectivists consulted Dr. Suess, they might learn something.

It’s not all bad, the essence of living for yourself is very good, and something we can all learn to do.  But we live in a society and we have to get along.  Compromise is necessary.

And anyone (not just me) who stops to help a pregnant woman change a tire is certainly a better person than some objectivist who can’t sacrifice 10 minutes to help a fellow human being.

There’s a lot of other problems with objectivism and I may address them at a later date.

[nazthinksoutloud]

The vibrations of fear in love. Your life is on the other side of fear ( hate envy prejudice racism jelousy ect)... Live more. Love more. Free yourself. Balance out those mfkn chakras! Stay in YOUR Magick 💖🕉☯️ #selfwork #love vs #fear #selfacceptance #selflove #selfvalidation #selfefficacy #compassion vs #pity #selfrealization #selftrust #altrusim #chakrabalancing #heartchakra #sacralchakra #solarplexus (at Las Vegas, Nevada)

[myserendipities]

A new equation, showing how our happiness depends not only on what happens to us but also how this compares to other people, has been developed by UCL researchers funded by Wellcome. The team developed an equation to predict happiness in 2014, highlighting the importance of expectations, and the new updated equation also takes into account other people's fortunes. The study, published in Nature Communications, found that inequality reduced happiness on average. This was true whether people were doing better or worse than another person they had just met. The subjects played gambles to try to win money and saw whether another person won or lost the same gambles. On average, when someone won a gamble they were happier when their partner also won the same gamble compared to when their partner lost. This difference could be attributed to guilt. Similarly, when people lost a gamble they were happier when their partner also lost compared to when their partner won, a difference that could be attributed to envy. "Our equation can predict exactly how happy people will be based not only on what happens to them but also what happens to the people around them," explains one of the study's co-lead authors, Dr Robb Rutledge (UCL Institute of Neurology and Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research). "On average we are less happy if others get more or less than us, but this varies a lot from person to person. Interestingly, the equation allows us to predict how generous an individual will be in a separate scenario when they are asked how they would like to split a small amount of money with another person. Based on exactly how inequality affects their happiness, we can predict which individuals will be altruistic. The results showed that people's generosity was not dependent on who the partner was or which partner they said they preferred. This suggests that people were acting according to stable personality traits rather than specific feelings about the other player. On average, people whose happiness was more affected by getting more than others, something that might relate to guilt, gave away 30% of the money. Those who were more affected by getting less than others, something that might relate to envy, gave only 10%. "Our results suggest that generosity towards strangers relates to how our happiness is affected by the inequalities we experience in our daily life," says Archy de Berker (UCL Institute of Neurology), co-lead author of the study, "The people who gave away half of their money when they had the opportunity showed no envy when they experienced inequality in a different task but showed a lot of guilt. By contrast, those who kept all the money for themselves displayed no signs of guilt in the other task but displayed a lot of envy. This is the first time that people's generosity has been directly linked to how inequality affects their happiness. Economists have had difficulty explaining why some people are more generous than others, and our experiments offers an explanation. The task may prove to be a useful way of measuring empathy, which could offer insight into social disorders such as borderline personality disorder. Such methods could help us better understand certain aspects of social disorders, such as indifference to the suffering of others."

http://phys.org/news/2016-06-happiness-equation-reveals-people-fortunes.html

[myserendipities]

It's an age-old quandary: Are we born "noble savages" whose best intentions are corrupted by civilization, as the 18th century Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau contended? Or are we fundamentally selfish brutes who need civilization to rein in our base impulses, as the 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued? After exploring the areas of the brain that fuel our empathetic impulses—and temporarily disabling other regions that oppose those impulses—two UCLA neuroscientists are coming down on the optimistic side of human nature. Our altruism may be more hard-wired than previously thought," said Leonardo Christov-Moo`re, a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA's Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior. The findings, reported in two recent studies, also point to a possible way to make people behave in less selfish and more altruistic ways, said senior author Marco Iacoboni, a UCLA psychiatry professor. The researchers also found that who people chose to give their money to changed depending on which part of the prefrontal cortex was dampened. Participants whose dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was dampened, meanwhile, tended to be more generous overall. But those whose dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was dampened tended to be more generous to recipients with higher incomes—people who appeared to be less in need of a handout. "Normally, participants would have been expected to give according to need, but with that area of the brain dampened, they temporarily lost the ability for social judgments to affect their behavior," Christov-Moore said. "By dampening this area, we believe we laid bare how altruistic each study participant naturally was." The findings of both studies suggest potential avenues for increasing empathy, which is especially critical in treating people who have experienced desensitizing situations like prison or war. "The study is important proof of principle that with a noninvasive procedure you can make people behave in a more prosocial way," Iacoboni said.

Your brain might be hard-wired for altruism

[aisyahawan]

"..all i wanted to do was to help”

“I may appear to be strong on the outside, however behind close doors I have a very fragile heart. I put on this facade to face this cruel world, but once I’m in my safe haven, I take my mask off. I, like many others get easily hurt and offended, just that I decide to internalise all these feelings as I think there’s too much sadness in this world, and my duty is not to add more to it but to bring more smiles. I find tranquil in helping others. I find joy in putting others as my priority before myself. People like me, we are the ‘o’ to the blood group, we give and never expect anything back. But I think those who accept our help is taking the phrase “never expect anything back” for granted, we could use some acknowledgement and some ‘thank you’ to get through our day instead of treating us as an annoyance or being too nosy. Our ultimate goal, is just to see you happier than before. So until someone says ‘thank you’, we are running on our own fuel, which might one day just run out. Believe me, you wouldn't want to live in a world where no one looks out for you, where everyone is for themselves. That’ll be such a nasty world to live in.”

So from now on, every time someone helps you or advises you or just do any good for you, say a simple ‘thank you’ to fill their tank up. 

You never know, that the person helping you, might be running on their last drop of fuel just to help you out.