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[–] 0 points 4 hours ago (1 child)

you have a story where you spent an hour of your time and effort to help your neighbour without getting anything out of it yourself.

everyone contributes as best they’re able with no concern for getting value out of an exchange proportional to the effort put in

If you read a little slower, and tried a little harder, you might understand what I actually wrote. I'm gonna go ahead and lay it out here, since you seem to be struggling...

I am not everyone, you are not everyone. Everyone is not me, and everyone is not you. People are individuals, and as individuals, they have different experiences in life. Those different experiences cause those individuals to behave differently. Some people do like helping others, (like I me), but not everyone does. You'll note in my story that not all my neighbors worked together to find this guy and let him know about his house, I doubt any of them did except me. I called the police about it, and they tried to help, because they are paid by my city (and by extension, me and my neighbors) to help if they can. I do not hold a social view that depends on everyone being as altruistic (if not more so) than I am. I have a personal philosophy that you should help people, and prioritize helping them based on how close they are to you. I put myself first, a little selfish, sure, but it's the old "put your mask on first, then help others" logic. You can't help others effectively if you need help yourself. After that, it's my family first, then friends, neighbors, residents of my state, countrymen, neighboring countries, continent, and then the rest of the world. However, it would be foolish of me to think that everyone has this same willingness to help, or the same logical progression of altruism for their fellow man. That is why I as an individual can help others with no expectations of direct compensation without characterizing myself as a naive fool who flunked out of homeschool, because I didn't actually state anything about the education of individuals that help others freely. Your comment is a strawman, where you build a different argument, and attack that, rather than debate what I have actually said.

Now, I'm asking you a question to make sure you are arguing in good faith. Please be sure to address it in your reply. Did you build a strawman intentionally, or did you do it accidentally?

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  • [–] 1 point 3 hours ago (1 child)

    To start with, someone arguing in good faith does not open with: "If you read a little slower, and tried a little harder, you might understand what I actually wrote. I'm gonna go ahead and lay it out here, since you seem to be struggling..."

    That's a sign of someone lacking a good argument and trying to hide it behind insults. Either the person gets offended and doesn't respond, or they focus on the insult instead of the argument. Either way it's a weak attempt to get them to focus on something other than the actual argument you are making.

    Secondly, speaking of Strawmen: you are insisting something cannot work unless 100% of the people are maximally altruistic, which simply isn't true. If you have 100 people, 99 are altruistic and 1 isn't, things will work out just fine. Now, what that minimum percent of autistic people needs to be is up for debate, but it does not need to be 100%. So I agree that not everybody is altruistic, but not everybody to be.

    Which brings me to the third point: you going on about your own personal altruism while claiming people aren't altruistic is a bizarre choice, and if you don't see how that undermines your argument I can't help you. My guess is you do see how obviously it undermines your argument and that's why you're trying to hide it under insults. You probably also want to feel like you're very special and nicer than everyone else, but given how rude you present yourself to people who disagree with you this undermines your argument even further. Most people are not this unnecessarily rude to people who disagree with them. So if even someone like you who is below average on politeness can be altruistic, it would imply people who care enough about others to be civil during a disagreement would be at least as altruistic if not more.

    You being altruistic while also being a dick implies the majority of people are altruistic; as the majority of people are not dicks, and even dicks are altruistic.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago

    Didn't address the strawman that you created, and instead went to ad-hominem attacks.

    You at least put forth some effort to make another point, but I see no reason to waste my time defending against it until we are cleary having an honest discussion on even terms.

    Please address why you made a strawman in the first place, and I will address the points you made in your last reply.

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