The point here seems to be that unselfish people are more empathetic to the plight of others. while I don't disagree I wonder if unselfishness leads people into situations where they work towards others benefit (people they perceive as being treated unfairly) at their own detriment also possibly leading to issues with depression. That's the point I presumed the article would make before I read it.
It can. There is also the issue of being awash in selfish dickheads that have a tendency to turn even the most straightforward attempts to help others into a dumpster fire.
Because the unselfish person in this scenario finds themselves giving, and others wantonly taking advantage of any kindness (theirs, or others'), the empathic sort would probably feel more disheartened by witnessing mistreatment than to notice their own.
I agree. Roughly, the less effort you put into being happy, the less likely you will be. And a tendency to put effort into yourself seems like it would be correlated with being selfish.
If we break it down into a binary comparison, there are givers and there are takers. If a giver doesn't learn early on how to handle takers, they can allow themselves to be used very easily. If a balance can be found between a giver and a taker, they can accomplish a lot together.
When I see people talk about living indefinitely around here in threads that come up occasionally, it does make me wonder if they are on the other side of some selfishness cutoff. It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die and day by day sees horrific injustice. It's almost solipsistic.
The same dynamic exists with those hundred millionaire preppers. It's very peculiar to actively prepare for a world in which hundreds of millions are dead and you are surviving in a mansion in the boonies somewhere. That must signal something, some kind of disconnect between your plight and the plight of others.
Though the people discussing that aren't usually obviously "selfish" so it does seem that the people who are directing the controls (or have a shot at them) usually are lacking some kind of empathy. The lack of it is probably useful if not necessary to get ahead because if you do stop to consider the world, it's hard not to find it very depressing.
It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die and day by day sees horrific injustice.
This seems a weird argument to me, because it works just as well if you replace "years" (or even months) for "centuries".
I can understand personally not waiting to live over an arbitrary age, since that's a subjective feeling. It just seems weird to consider it an universal point and deem everyone who doesn't to be morally defective. What's the objective basis for that?
I'm sorry, "weird" in this context just means "whoa dude, that's weird to consider". It's not an argument of morality. You can lack empathy and still be fairly moral.
Fair enough, although doesn't seem much better for the people in question.
My puzzle is more over the line. Seems to me that if empathetic person can wish to live an extra year starting from their 50th anniversary, why not on their 100th or 250th?
> It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die and day by day sees horrific injustice.
how long should you want to live in such a world? one or two centuries ok; one or two millennia not ok?
I can't imagine being so empathic that you wouldn't want to live a long time.
Since there's horrific injustice going on this very moment are you just biding your time hoping for death?
Like most people, I don't control the world and my actions have minuscule impacts on the global scale. As such I find caring about things outside of my control a rather egotistical standpoint.
There is nothing selfish about focusing on things that I can impact, and recognizing your a tiny fish in the vastness of space.
The main issue with that stance is that a lot of human suffering happens because others claim it is "out of their control" to do anything. Dividing things into the two buckets "in my control" and "out if my control" allows a lot of leeway for us to excuse selfish behavior.
I think it's prudent to make it out business to get control over and fix things that are actively causing harm. Or as Raymond Chen might say, "Be somebody":
From a super-simple perspective, a community that grows exponentially _will_ eventually have very few resources per head.
If, as a starting point, someone believes the population is growing exponentially then they likely also believe it doesn't matter if they try to be selfish or not. There will be a lot of people with limited resources and that is probably going to reduce their quality of life.
Now there are a lot of issues with this view and the actual reality might favour anything, but I don't think the average selfish or selfless person has thought about them. So I'm pretty happy to excuse both until I see arguments with more facts than 'I think' or implicit 'selfishness is bad it sounds unfriendly'.
> So I'm pretty happy to excuse [selfishness] until I see arguments with more facts than 'I think' or implicit 'selfishness is bad it sounds unfriendly'.
This is a really good point.
To remove the moral overtones, I like to think of selfishness as local vs global optimization. The prisoner's dilemma is a great (abstract) example where "locally optimal" or "selfish" behaviour creates a situation where everyone is individually worse off than they need to be.
In the real world, this kind of situation is especially visible in urban planning and traffic control. Things like lane widening or adding a new road can famously worsen traffic congestion. Lane mergers is another. The "zipper merge" is known to produce shorter queues and fewer accidents, but individuals have motive to "cheat" and merge earlier in these cases, which ends up causing worse traffic for everyone.
Personally, I find this game theoretic view point of "selfishness" to generate more precise and relevant questions than the more morally-tinted stances. Maybe that kind of thing is up your alley.
> I think it's prudent to make it out business to get control over and fix things that are actively causing harm.
And I am confident I could do that more effectively as an ageless vampire overlord. The main weakness of a benevolent dictatorship has always been the succession.
Is a first world person who purchases long-term-care insurance or health insurance infinitely more selfish than a third-world person who has no insurance of any kind?
The things you describe are just forms of insurance that are not considered must-haves by most people, but are sometimes chosen by super wealthy people for the same reason anyone chooses to insure anything.
> It's weird to think that you'd be interested in living for centuries or longer in a world that has seen everyone before you die
When you consider that humans are just primates that evolved from a process known as "survival of the fittest" - it's really not that weird at all. Thinking of people in terms of wild animals makes our actions much more explainable.
But I think this is a good example of "perceived" injustice. The idea that someone may live indefinitely - at zero expense to you - makes you feel depressed.
It reminds me of the iconic kindergarten rule "if you can't bring enough for the whole class, don't bring it". Because there's always that one kid that will put up a tantrum if he can't also have a snack.
I think this is why many socialists identify with this article and also have depression. Like a kindergartener, they see what other people have and they want it. They think it's unfair that someone is wealthy while not everyone is. Then they "unselfishly" want to take and redistribute what wasn't theirs. Hence the "oh I'm so unselfish and depressed because I'm such a good person" type posts.
You've got me wrong. If life-extension works and becomes widely available, I too could live, forever*.
It's just I'm not sure that I'd want to, even if I could. Wouldn't it be incredibly depressing to watch something like WWI and then live to see humans doing the same dumb stuff 100 years later? Would you really want to see Twitter when you had lived through Twain? Wouldn't it be really depressing to be a thousand years old and to have every person you ever knew dead?
It's not someone having 1000 years and someone having 100 that depresses me; it surprises me that someone would want to live for 1000 years when some people don't get 1. I can't imagine living for decades having experienced stuff like Vegas multiple times. It seems crushing. Then again, I'm not 130, so who knows.
> it surprises me that someone would want to live for 1000 years when some people don't get 1
Yeah I get that. Crossing the border into Mexico is an experience. On one side of the line you have prosperity, on the other side you have soul crushing poverty. Then you go and enjoy some tacos.
Sure, I'd have it much better than all the people who had to die. But I already have it much better than all the people who are killed or crippled by preventable illnesses because they were unlucky enough to be born into poverty.
But that doesn't really factor into my moral reasoning. My living forever wouldn't necessarily make things worse for people who don't get to do that. So, as a consequentialist, I don't think it would be wrong. Making things better for some people without making them better for other people is better than not making things better for anyone.
That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever?
Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's irrationally ego driven and it can't be fully embraced without a lack of empathy. If you can live for 150 years and not get worn down by the things people do to each other, more power to you.
Is there a threshold of years when the wish to live for X years change from normal to irrationally ego driven? Or are you asserting that any wish to live is irrationally ego driven? Is there a quanlitative or kind difference, under your view, for someone wishing to live 50, 500 or 5000 years?
Or to put it in plain words and as I can't find a way to make it less confusing: why isn't your position equivalent to advocating for everyone to kill themselves (or at the least, not caring at all whether they live or die)
Humans have natural lifespans. We've had very few people live to be older than 120. There's no reason to not naturally extend your life if you can, but I'm not sure we'll find that experience all that enjoyable as individuals (or it will require a disconnect to do so) and it isn't obvious there is any benefit to society from it (imagine Howard Hughes still directing his empire from his hotel penthouse today).
It's a natural ego driven thing to want to survive, but it is still driven by ego.
Natural lifespan is a bit of a misnomer to describe our current lifespan though, seeing all the thing modern medicine does. I didn't realize how much biopsy would creep me out until I have it done, not to mention all kind of surgeries we do nowadays.
I really don't understand your point either. Imagine Srinivasa Ramanujan living to be 500 years old rather than 32, or Leonardo Da Vinci still being alive today -- their contributions to society would be immense.
We've been seeking to and succeeding at extending our natural lifespans since forever. The only sensible argument against it is that the planet would eventually be overcrowded, assuming we don't become interplanetary any time soon.
Most people aren't da Vinci and even if they were there's no guarantee (or likelihood) those artists could do that for any extended period of time. Picasso was Picasso because he was not da Vinci (well and a million other reasons, but just a comparison). Maybe da Vinci gets stuck in his views and doesn't have anything to offer as of 1900 except a shell of himself. Or, maybe da Vinci gets really bored after 300 years. What else does he have to prove?
What I'm trying to say is that all progress has occurred within our now millenia old system of relatively short lifespans. It means that within 150 years, societies can completely change because new individuals and experiences have to take over. Even the ancients saw death as a kind of leveler. We all die, even the mighty don't get to take anything with them.
Does that happen if we change that equation? Maybe it doesn't matter because people are good at adapting, but there's still a possibility it isn't all sunshine.
Nobody deserves anything. If humans can survive forever, most will (BTW I‘ve read somewhere that your half-life would still be 600 years or so due to serious accidents). Not WANTING to survive as long as possible is IMO pathological thinking. Sure, there are reasons why you would rather not have humans live longer.. but why not long for it?
Also, if you live forever, almost everybody will be able to make a lasting impact on society, sooner or later.
I'm not sure why this is a question. Barring inhumane levels of pain (emotional or physical), living is always preferable to death.
>Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world
Agree, we are all dust in the wind etc, etc. But why does that matter? Should I decide to stop living at 27 because my trajectory means I won't accomplish anything with my life?
Personally, the strongest motivator to live as long as possible is to experience as much "existence" as possible. My lifetime is constricted to the 21st century right now and that means I will never experience humanity's future. Sure, it will happen regardless whether I'm there to experience it, but that won't matter to me, I'll be dead.
If wanting to experience life is selfish, then I'm sorry for being born (not directed at you, just in general).
My own perspective (which I can already tell you'll likely disagree with) is that I want to live forever to remove the burden of having to choose only 1 to 2 more major experiences in my life (I'm 52).
As an example I leaned Japanese. To do so I moved to Japan at 33. My experience there tells me if I want to learn Chinese and actually remember it I need to move to China for 6-8 years. Given I only have 20-30 years left and probably less in pure freedom of movement (meaning my body will get old and limit where I live and what I can do), then ATM I only get to choose 1, 2 or 3 more major things to do with my life. If I could live forever I'd choose to do all of them knowing I have plenty of time left. I'd spend 8+ years in China. Maybe 6+ years in Germany and 6+ in France and 6+ in Italy and 6+ in Spain and a few in South American countries and then others. I'd go back to school and learn various topics spending several years in each.
I don't agree with your assertion wanting to live a long long time has anything to do with ego. People used to only live to an average of 30. Today I saw a program on Japanese TV showing they have 60000 people over 100 years old. They showed several having productive lives, some were still running stores. One was a hairdresser. She still loved meeting and talking to people while cutting their hair. She was 102. The current stats say that 60k number will be 120k in only 3 more years.
What does the fact the people in the past died have anything to do with anything? People in the past died of all kinds of diseases so people now are ego driven to use the tech that prevents those diseases? I also see no relation to empathy. In fact the older I get the more empathy I seem to have.
Feeling important has little to do with wanting things.
Poor people want be rich and have a Mansion not because the think they are important enough to have a Mansion, but because being able to afford a Mansion is better than not being able to afford a Mansion.
> That's not my point. My point is why do you want to live forever?
From an emotional point of view, I do not want my parents to die.
They're in 70s, but I think that the time they have left is too short. I'd like them to live to see their 80s, their 100s, their 200s. I would like them to be there in 20 years when the last of my children graduate university. I would like them to see their grandchildren get married, and celebrate the birth of their great grand children.
I do not want to see my friends die. I have been with them since we were 4 years old, and I'd like to celebrate life with them for more than the 30 years have left according to actuarial charts.
I do not want my mentors to die. They're already in retirement homes, but they have so much more to experience, but many won't see their life's work come to fruition.
I would like everyone I know to live to see their 300th birthday, and I would like to be there with them.
Is that forever? No.
Forever may be too long, but 70 years upon this earth is too short by far. If living to see 500 healthy years is within the grasp of our technology, we should seize upon it.
I do not think this view is egotistical, or selfish. A world where no one dies except by accident or deliberate choice would be a much better world than what we have today.
Too often 'live forever' posts focus on the greats of history, theorising what would happen if they lived longer... but I challenge you to think of it in a more personal respect. Do you want your friends and family to die when they do not want to?
You're kind of missing the point. If people lived 500 years it still wouldn't be enought. We're biologically programmed to want more.
Knowing there's a time limit, you would want to extend it. Knowing there's no time limit, everything would stop having any meaning. Why would you get married and have kids if you could have it 100 years later?
I had thought the point was answering "why would you want to live forever?" so I gave it my best shot. :)
> Why would you get married
and have kids if you could have it 100 years later?
Because you get the enjoyment of marriage and an expanded family now.
Frankly, speaking, I cannot believe people would be willing to delay satisfaction for 100s of years, merely because they are immortal.
But what if you're right? Well then...
If in fact living past 200 causes everything to be meaningless, we'll likely just find out people waste away from old age depression, and the point of the debate is moot.
If immortals stop caring about life because it is long lasting, we'll just find the first members of the immortal generation do worse than their mortal peers in all respects.
The question of "how much life is too much life" is something I would rather find out through primary research on people who are 500 or more years old, instead of debating in the hypothetical.
Practically though, I doubt immortality is within the grasp of this current generation. Research into 'immortality' is just using forever as an ideal---not as an expectation of what will really be delivered upon.
Extending life by a few more decades is a valid goal for our generation.
>>> Because you get the enjoyment of marriage and an expanded family now
You already raised 4 generations of humans by now or you can still do the same thing because you're not even half way your life. Why would you want to do it now when your "teenage" years last 50 years and your "twenties" 100. You can experience everything, just for longer.
>>> If immortals stop caring about life because it is long lasting, we'll just find the first members of the immortal generation do worse than their mortal peers in all respects.
500 year life expectancy vs immortality is another discussion.
>>> Practically though, I doubt immortality is within the grasp of this current generation.
I personally don't see any issue with waiting till you are 50 to raise children, today... even when the life expectancy is 75. Life is to be celebrated no matter what age someone is when they become parents.
If biology were no constraint, I can imagine some people would have children once every hundred years, and spend the next century shepherding them into good position in their growing dynasty.
That said, with vastly increased life spans, the whole notion of reproduction and marriage would take on new meaning, and I doubt many of the ideas we ascribe to today will be of much concern in the future.
> Yeah, I know. It's all hypothetical for us
Yes, which is why I don't see much of a reason to be so pessimistic. Those whom want to live forever---hypothetically will. Those who do not, as they are bored or tired, will choose not to continue onwards.
> Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years
Nobody is important and nobody deserves anything. There's no outside force making decisions about who is allowed to have what. You get what you figure out how to get and you keep it as long as you figure out how to keep it.
> It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals.
But assigning yourself to be the arbiter of who is or isn't "important" enough to "deserve" an extended lifespan isn't ego-driven?
> If you can live for 150 years and not get worn down by the things people do to each other, more power to you.
If you're going to let your own mood be dictated by the never-ending stream of terrible things in the world, I'd be surprised if you could make it through even a a normal lifetime. There's a lot of wonderful things in the world too. Why ignore those?
But assigning yourself to be the arbiter of who is or isn't "important" enough to "deserve" an extended lifespan isn't ego-driven?
I realize I'm not important. My opinion that ultimately no individual is especially important is not based out of ego but a recognition that there's been like 10 billion of us and there will be more. But if you want it, have at it; maybe just consider why you want it.
If you're going to let your own mood be dictated by the never-ending stream of terrible things in the world, I'd be surprised if you could make it through even a a normal lifetime. There's a lot of wonderful things in the world too. Why ignore those?
Many people are coming from the point of view that immortality would be spread out to everyone---so we won't be alone.
However, if only one person can be immortal and for instance it's you Aaron... then you will become important out of virtue of your status. In a ten thousand years, you might be the only remaining record of the 21st century.
Thank you. It seems like a lot of people try to reason in an egoless manner, but all they end up doing is transferring their ego-driven hang-ups onto their concept of a universal objective viewpoint.
I want to live longer because I want to see amazing tech. I imagine rhis is one of the primary reasons that people want a longer lifespan.
Beyond that, I want to live long enough to go on interplanetary and/or interstellar voyages. My desire to experience the marvels and mysteries of the universe are irrespective of humanity's conditions, whether we are facing an apocalypse or living in a global golden age.
Ok if not 10,000 years, why not 500? Still too much? Another 50 then? At what point does this argument tell me I should just kill myself right now because I don't "deserve" to live any longer?
It seems to me that you've chosen an arbitrary number (current average lifespan) and somehow chosen that to be "fair" and that living any longer is "selfish" and "ego driven".
In the absence of modern medicine we might live on average for 50 years. Is living that extra 30 years I might get from technology also selfish?
Hypothetically, if everyone can live forever if they want, is it ok then?
Interesting points but I'm not sure you can easily correlate survival instinct with selfishness. I suffer from chronic depression, but I also have strong survival instincts. I don't feel bad about being alive just because other people have died, as such. Indeed, death bothers me less than ongoing suffering: I was surprised to note that while I feel a bit sad for the people who died the other day in Las Vegas, and very sad for their grieving relatives, I am much more troubled by the ~500 people who were wounded - they're 'lucky' insofar as they're alive and not dead, but the wounds they suffered are likely to impact them for a lifetime, the more so for being unexpected (vs. the sort of trauma you see coming or volunteer and prepare for, as military people do).
Because HN is a good distraction from that. Maybe I'm working on making it better and I haven't told you, or maybe I'm just a bum. Does it matter? It's a damn forum, we're all wasting time, that's the point?
I'm surprised how strongly people feel about that post.
I'm just surprised there is such a large contingent of hundred millionaire preppers and/or people who think they are going to live forever and don't see how that could be interpreted as lacking empathy, when there are (as the previous poster pointed out), people dying of starvation.
> With that kind of thinking, why are you even posting here? Why do you allow yourself any leisure time when people in the world are starving?
Indeed. I tell people all the time that poor/starving people should stop having children so that poverty or having to starve "dies out". I post here so that this message gets a much larger audience.
My theory is that some/many prepers are either in denial, or haven't take the time (and/or lack the capacity) to imagine the true state of the world they're prepping for. And certainlybsome do it for a sense of security, as false as it might be.
Moi? If I knew there was going to be a nuclear explosion I'd likely drive into the mushroom cloud. Perhaps in this case my imagination has gotten the better of me?
I don’t see much of a disconnect with the idea of living much longer, though if that were really possible, I understand that it would have repercussions on everyone else on a larger scale.
I work in areas that look at suffering and alleviating that (in ways most people on the planet don’t) but I also wonder and wish if I could live much longer than currently possible (longer life without tackling aging is pointless, IMO). The main reason for me is that I’m so utterly fascinated and awed by everything humans have accomplished and continue to accomplish (even though there are vast areas of improvement), and I really, really want to see humans going to another planet, setting up a colony, etc., among many other things. Life itself is such a wonder and seemingly miraculous (without assigning any supernatural motives).
Unselfish people begin to feel sad when the plight of others echoes with their own experiences, early childhood trauma etc. Often find themselves in a vulnerable position.
A close relative of mine, was a person with very good intentions, but terrible implementation. Always helping others even to the detriment of herself. This in turn resulted in her constantly asking all her family money so she could give it to others.
Her help consisted in giving people constantly money, yet this only made them dependent of her and made her feel good.
Teach a man to fish, don't give him the fish.
Sadly this person passed away, we miss her a lot. she had really good intentions, but she wasn't really helping others.
The article resonated with me. I find inequality very upsetting and can be prone to depression. I wouldn't say that the depression is caused by a lack of reciprocity in others. If anything I've found that almost everyone, even otherwise 'selfish' people, can be extremely generous if they view you as someone who does good by others. I'm also no fool if I know someone is trying to rip me off.
I do think the depression comes from thinking about someone's situation, thinking "wow, that would be really sad/stressful/aggravating" and then starting to feel those emotions myself quite strongly. I would also say this tendency in myself increased a lot after becoming a parent. Avoiding reading the news has helped considerably, although that's not a great solution.
It's helpful to be realistic about the world. People should have equal opportunity but equal outcomes are impossible. People have different levels of intelligence and motivation, different interests, different values.
Oh I agree, and for the most part I'm using equality to mean equal opportunity, or perhaps equal outcome for equal personal investment. Not so much that everyone should have identical lives. Maybe a better way to put it is I don't want anyone getting a raw deal in life.
I could rant about this for hours. I think these situations do occur and for the reasons you presume but their root cause is in poor communication of expectations between the unselfish folks and those they are helping.
On the other hand, people often see themself as unselfish when in fact they are highly emotionally dependent on other people instead of being self-sufficient.
This path would lead directly to depression when you find out that the person you are emotionally dependent on isn't going to dedicate themself to making world look just to you.
This seems to me less like an observable phenomenon and more an excuse to extend an argument that unselfish people are actually just selfish people, and therefore "selfish" people aren't real.
Sorry if I'm reading too much into it, but this reads like the preamble to at least 10 articles people have handed to me in defense of Ayn Rand.
> Actually, yes, this distinction of selfish versus unselfish is sooo pre-high school.
If your reasoning here is, that every person just does what feels good for them and therefore everyone is just "selfish", then that certainly isn't the whole picture why people do what they do.
There're certainly people doing things because they feel right, but it
might not be a pleasure for them doing it.
Reducing everything to just being selfish doesn't make that much sense.
What you have described is three quarters, let me fill this for you:
Person wishing to do the right thing and doing it ("unselfish")
Person doing the right thing against their wishes ("righteous")
Person wishing to do the right thing but not doing it (akrasia, you missed this one)
Person not doing the right thing and not wishing so ("selfish")
It's all about image of oneself and the experience of being burned by your actions, and every person out there shows plenty of behavior from all four quarters. So dividing people doesn't makes sense. Now, dividing actions does.
Actually no, even by the somewhat suspect rules laid out in evolutionary biology the concept of altruism stands out as valuable separate from any immediate gratification in many species.
If your sources are pretty high school why should anyone here listen to them?
Maybe not everything is an exercise in pushing an economic ideology.
We are all evolved already so we are all altruist under the hood, it's already there under the hood. Any non-psychopatic person will show altruism when in applicable context.
I didn't want to be too negative. My point is that it's really hard to distinguish between truly unselfish behavior and non-assertiveness or passive-aggressive behavior. Selfish behavior seems easier to identify.
Because people who think of themselves as unselfish but are just passive may get depressed because they never get their way. For example people may be unhappy with their pay but are afraid to ask for more.
That's not even remotely with the subject of the conversation was. It's not the subject or germane to the paper linked at hand. Could we please not politicize this?
> More precisely, prosocial attitudes predict depression, which is in contrast to individualist attitudes. Individualist here basically just means selfish, or relatively selfish
Do you understand what's being conveyed here? Because I have no idea. But it doesn't sound overly legitimate to me. Of course, I didn't read the original research.
Depression has higher incidences in individualistic and affluent western societies. One probably analysis, agreeing with what you said, is that the "something wrong" is the lack of social cohesion that prosperity and modernity have brought. The broader direction of our culture for >100 years has lead to the breakdown of institutions that maintain social cohesion in favor of personal autonomy and expression (which those same social institutions, to varying degrees, inhibit).
That's the trade off for placing personal autonomy and self-expression at the paramount of social priorities--the guard rails come off.
Because the non-Western countries are poorer, with worse issues to deal with. How can you afford seeing a psychiatrist who gives you the diagnosis depression when you can barely pay for the roof above your head? See e.g. the karoshi (yes I'm aware that is Japanese) at Foxconn.
Pedanticism aside, you make a very good point. I feel like Western society has been progressively getting more and more individualistic, with movements like Libertarianism on the rise. People who just want us all to get along are being down-trodden by the people who just want to get ahead.
Maybe I was thinking of Steinbeck when I wrote that who knows. So good catch and thanks.
I am pro individualism as it helps people define themselves. But as you pointed out when it is turned into a zero sum game of getting ahead in an already developed system it becomes a hollow view.
At some point I has to change to we for progress to happen. Strangely it was my extremely competitive corporate executive father who told me stop using I switch to we. A simple change that allowed me to see problems collectively instead of individualistically.
Someone already replied to you with some of the same point - but I think the problem is exceedingly obvious - we lack community in the US.
I put a large part of the blame on suburban development. What did we expect when we took social animals and then sequestered them into little boxes far away from where humans congregate - requiring you to fit into another little box to drive to the next box for your planned and highly controlled social experience. Nevermind the 1.5hrs+ the average suburban commuter sits in a little box 5 days a week.
I've been thinking of where to move to finally "settle down" in the US - and I'm coming up with a blank to be honest. I want to live somewhere I can be part of a community that shares my values and pulls together on a day to day basis - not just when some national news style emergency happens. I want daily interaction with my neighbors, forced or otherwise. I want the neighborhood kids to come running through my yard/sidewalk/whatever and to feed half a dozen of them lunch if they happen to be around when it's time, and to expect the same when my kid is off wandering and exploring.
The phrase it takes a village to raise a child is absolutely more true than I ever realized. We destroyed nearly all our villages, and now wonder why we're so divided and depressed. We no longer function as a society that shares the same major goals.
Talking to someone who lives in a semi-functional (I'm not sure functional exists in the US) community from a large city compared to the average suburbanite is eye opening in the disconnect from reality the latter has. I grew up around it, and simply didn't realize how damaging it is until I started to travel the world and see how actual communities function.
I know some folks do well in suburban-style living, but I would say that the majority who say they love it are actively being mentally and socially damaged and simply don't know it. The views they express are now completely normalized.
Warning this is coming from someone highly involved in Oklahoma politics.
Oklahoma towns and cities tends to be more community centered. This may be do to a lack of money in a community or physical isolation from the rest of the country. But it is still there.
There are the same problems that other cities have, but we do provide good housing for most of our citizens. Tulsa, in particular through the work of the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma has ended chronic homeless within its borders. We are working on the same in Oklahoma City. We believe hard work matters and people can be leave poverty. The community providing the support systems for that to happen. Now, no one is going to give it to you. We just allow an affordable education path for betterment. And have a strong network of nonprofits and family foundations supporting programs of many kinds.
That is just in the area I am fortunate to work in. Oklahoma is not perfect one just has to look at where we stand national on things like teen pregnancy, women incarnation, drug abuse etc. It is just there are some places where community still matters and Oklahoma is one of those places.
A suburb with access to schools, libraries and parks is a fine thing. I grew up in such a suburb (in Toronto, if you're curious) and I'm not sure I understand what kind of city community provides the village experience you're imagining in your second paragraph. In my experience city dwellers have not been more neighbourly than those I remember from the suburb of my youth.
I can't tell where they flipped the directionality around for the headline, because the first line of the article is "People with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to perceived inequality" and the rest of the article sticks to that finding. It seems intuitive that people with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to X, for all X.
It looks like the author is assuming the converse, and also assuming that perceiving inequality is the same as being unselfish. All in all, the title is quite misleading.
That only makes sense if you mentally edit out the words 'feel bad about' from before 'perceived inequality'. If your interpretation depends on ignoring a whole clause, it's flawed.
Yeah... The headline and the rest of the article are out of sync.
It's not "Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression", it's "People who Wind Up with Depression Are More Likely to be Unselfish". Which kind of sounds like a non-story.
Having looked at their frontpage recently, it's amazing how far it's fallen. Not that I every considered it a reliable source, but it genuinely had some interesting articles in the past. There was one article about the actual story that inspired True Detective that really stuck with me. Now it's just another place to vent about the President.
Nope - clinical depression is different from "feeling bad in response" to a specific stimulus. If you do something hurtful to me and I feel bad about it, that's not depression. When nothing is happening and I feel bad in general, that's depression.
The article says, people who feel bad in response to specific types of stimulus (a perceived slight), rather than just shrugging it off, are more likely to develop full-blown clinical depression down the line.
However, there is a personality trait, Neuroticism, which has to do with sensitivity to negative emotion, and also does correlate with depression, anxiety, etc. In other words, if you are higher in Neuroticism (i.e. more susceptible to negative emotions) then you are more likely to also develop clinical depression.
Personally, my opinion is that the ambiguity of people's self-perceptions of their persona allows there to be an asymmetry between the harm they might get receiving advice about their personality and the benefit they might get from heeding advice about personalities that they can at least envision themselves as being perceived by others as having, if that makes sense. It probably isn't particularly empirical, but I don't know if we will get to a science of personality within our lifetimes (but (maybe..?) it would be nice to be proved wrong).
It seems intuitive that people with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to X, for all X.
Nonsense. Depressed people are not just sad about everything, and depression affects selfish and unselfish people alike. Trying to derive general laws from shallow stereotypes is likely to compound misconceptions. Doing so to engage in pedantic critiques of a headline while ignoring the rest of the article is just a waste of time for everyone.
The spurious directionality is introduced by the unfortunate insertion of the phrasal verb "wind up".
Likelihood as such doesn't have directionality; it expresses the frequency of co-occurence of two phenomena.
That is to say, "Unselfish People More Likely to be Depressed" doesn't assert causality as much, and "Depression Correlates with Unselfish Traits" even less.
> Here, we demonstrate that functional magnetic resonance imaging activity patterns in the amygdala and hippocampus induced by the inequity between the self and other rewards during an economic game can predict participants’ present and future (measured one year later) depression indices.
This seems to suggest that the headline is not terribly inaccurate with respect to the study itself, at least. Unselfishness (sensitivity to economic inequality) predicts markers for depression.
The article makes no attempt to establish that concern for others' interests is not necessarily mutually exclusive to self-interest.
In his book Give and Take, Adam Grant talks about givers who are "otherish:" they demonstrate strong compassion for others, but not at the neglect of self-interest. Those who identified as otherish were least susceptible to burnout or compassion fatigue and could sustain their patterns for giving more help than they received for long periods of time.
I suspect there is some correlation between high concern for the interests of others and low prioritization of self-interest. But the real culprit is low self-interest, not high empathy or a strong concern for fairness.
From practical observation, I disagree with your last point. When fighting for improving the state of affairs or fighting against injustice, the amount of time and effort it takes to achieve even small positive changes is huge in many areas. Even with self-interest, the amount of extreme hopelessness doesn’t really go away. Add to this the fact that people who could easily care and make a difference most often ignore things, it’s a recipe for becoming frustrated, feeling helpless and seeing things like a never ending struggle with very little to show for. The lack of empathy and the high prevalence of inaction among the majority act as triggers in all this.
I am pretty sure if we wouldn't have this instinct to survive, reflexes etc., lot of people would op out. Btw the ultimate ignorance is not death, but the act of killing yourself
Unselfish? In the article the term unselfish was used instead of altruistic. Unselfish views and concerns of course don't actually help anyone. Being concerned for something and not doing anything about it is a going to be depressive. People regularly report that the best way to feel good (and connected) is to go out and help other people, and conversely not worry too much about the things you cannot realisically effect. I would suggested the seemingly immutable course of the modern world contributes to a feeling of helplessness and increased rates of depression.
Actually, that seems to be right from my limited experience. Also, my yoga guru says, being selfish is also good at times, because we are responsible for the life that we are first, and then comes other lives.
In my experience, many 'unselfish' people are people that don't take the time to study and understand human nature. Since it's human nature to be 'nice' they default to this behavior and never seem to get the results they are after. Hence the depression.
On the other hand, once you study, you'll learn that principled selfishness is the KEY to getting what you want. Hence better results and less depression.
“Selfish” conflates two simultaneously-weighted perceptions “this person should give me more” and rational self-interest / getting or not getting a better “deal.”
Likewise, “unselfish” conflates two simultaneously-weighted perceptions virtue-signaling (appearance of giving) and genuine caring about individuals and people (substance of effective helping).
Another issue is that culturally, some people resent each other when there is difference in default attitude: selfish vs. unselfish. It may seem racist but I’ve observed an underlying tension between Arabs and Israelis arise from this difference in outlook in individual relationships.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadBecause the unselfish person in this scenario finds themselves giving, and others wantonly taking advantage of any kindness (theirs, or others'), the empathic sort would probably feel more disheartened by witnessing mistreatment than to notice their own.
The same dynamic exists with those hundred millionaire preppers. It's very peculiar to actively prepare for a world in which hundreds of millions are dead and you are surviving in a mansion in the boonies somewhere. That must signal something, some kind of disconnect between your plight and the plight of others.
Though the people discussing that aren't usually obviously "selfish" so it does seem that the people who are directing the controls (or have a shot at them) usually are lacking some kind of empathy. The lack of it is probably useful if not necessary to get ahead because if you do stop to consider the world, it's hard not to find it very depressing.
This seems a weird argument to me, because it works just as well if you replace "years" (or even months) for "centuries".
I'll be happy if I make 75 and I'll view every day after that as a gift and not something I deserve.
But these are just thoughts, happy to be wrong.
My puzzle is more over the line. Seems to me that if empathetic person can wish to live an extra year starting from their 50th anniversary, why not on their 100th or 250th?
how long should you want to live in such a world? one or two centuries ok; one or two millennia not ok?
There is nothing selfish about focusing on things that I can impact, and recognizing your a tiny fish in the vastness of space.
I think it's prudent to make it out business to get control over and fix things that are actively causing harm. Or as Raymond Chen might say, "Be somebody":
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110118-00/?p=...
If, as a starting point, someone believes the population is growing exponentially then they likely also believe it doesn't matter if they try to be selfish or not. There will be a lot of people with limited resources and that is probably going to reduce their quality of life.
Now there are a lot of issues with this view and the actual reality might favour anything, but I don't think the average selfish or selfless person has thought about them. So I'm pretty happy to excuse both until I see arguments with more facts than 'I think' or implicit 'selfishness is bad it sounds unfriendly'.
This is a really good point.
To remove the moral overtones, I like to think of selfishness as local vs global optimization. The prisoner's dilemma is a great (abstract) example where "locally optimal" or "selfish" behaviour creates a situation where everyone is individually worse off than they need to be.
In the real world, this kind of situation is especially visible in urban planning and traffic control. Things like lane widening or adding a new road can famously worsen traffic congestion. Lane mergers is another. The "zipper merge" is known to produce shorter queues and fewer accidents, but individuals have motive to "cheat" and merge earlier in these cases, which ends up causing worse traffic for everyone.
Personally, I find this game theoretic view point of "selfishness" to generate more precise and relevant questions than the more morally-tinted stances. Maybe that kind of thing is up your alley.
And I am confident I could do that more effectively as an ageless vampire overlord. The main weakness of a benevolent dictatorship has always been the succession.
The things you describe are just forms of insurance that are not considered must-haves by most people, but are sometimes chosen by super wealthy people for the same reason anyone chooses to insure anything.
When you consider that humans are just primates that evolved from a process known as "survival of the fittest" - it's really not that weird at all. Thinking of people in terms of wild animals makes our actions much more explainable.
But I think this is a good example of "perceived" injustice. The idea that someone may live indefinitely - at zero expense to you - makes you feel depressed.
It reminds me of the iconic kindergarten rule "if you can't bring enough for the whole class, don't bring it". Because there's always that one kid that will put up a tantrum if he can't also have a snack.
I think this is why many socialists identify with this article and also have depression. Like a kindergartener, they see what other people have and they want it. They think it's unfair that someone is wealthy while not everyone is. Then they "unselfishly" want to take and redistribute what wasn't theirs. Hence the "oh I'm so unselfish and depressed because I'm such a good person" type posts.
It's just I'm not sure that I'd want to, even if I could. Wouldn't it be incredibly depressing to watch something like WWI and then live to see humans doing the same dumb stuff 100 years later? Would you really want to see Twitter when you had lived through Twain? Wouldn't it be really depressing to be a thousand years old and to have every person you ever knew dead?
It's not someone having 1000 years and someone having 100 that depresses me; it surprises me that someone would want to live for 1000 years when some people don't get 1. I can't imagine living for decades having experienced stuff like Vegas multiple times. It seems crushing. Then again, I'm not 130, so who knows.
Yeah I get that. Crossing the border into Mexico is an experience. On one side of the line you have prosperity, on the other side you have soul crushing poverty. Then you go and enjoy some tacos.
Well I assume that if I have long life that there are others too. Think of the deep relationships that one could form over a 1000+ year period.
But that doesn't really factor into my moral reasoning. My living forever wouldn't necessarily make things worse for people who don't get to do that. So, as a consequentialist, I don't think it would be wrong. Making things better for some people without making them better for other people is better than not making things better for anyone.
Is anyone on this forum so important that they deserve to live for 10,000 years, when the entirety of human civilization which made that possible is now dead? Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world. It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals. I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it, I'm just saying it's irrationally ego driven and it can't be fully embraced without a lack of empathy. If you can live for 150 years and not get worn down by the things people do to each other, more power to you.
Or to put it in plain words and as I can't find a way to make it less confusing: why isn't your position equivalent to advocating for everyone to kill themselves (or at the least, not caring at all whether they live or die)
It's a natural ego driven thing to want to survive, but it is still driven by ego.
We've been seeking to and succeeding at extending our natural lifespans since forever. The only sensible argument against it is that the planet would eventually be overcrowded, assuming we don't become interplanetary any time soon.
What I'm trying to say is that all progress has occurred within our now millenia old system of relatively short lifespans. It means that within 150 years, societies can completely change because new individuals and experiences have to take over. Even the ancients saw death as a kind of leveler. We all die, even the mighty don't get to take anything with them.
Does that happen if we change that equation? Maybe it doesn't matter because people are good at adapting, but there's still a possibility it isn't all sunshine.
Also, if you live forever, almost everybody will be able to make a lasting impact on society, sooner or later.
Obviously this would depend greatly on where you live (much more likely to be shot in the US or Mexico than in Japan).
I'm not sure why this is a question. Barring inhumane levels of pain (emotional or physical), living is always preferable to death.
>Nobody is that important or has that much to offer to the world
Agree, we are all dust in the wind etc, etc. But why does that matter? Should I decide to stop living at 27 because my trajectory means I won't accomplish anything with my life?
Personally, the strongest motivator to live as long as possible is to experience as much "existence" as possible. My lifetime is constricted to the 21st century right now and that means I will never experience humanity's future. Sure, it will happen regardless whether I'm there to experience it, but that won't matter to me, I'll be dead.
If wanting to experience life is selfish, then I'm sorry for being born (not directed at you, just in general).
As an example I leaned Japanese. To do so I moved to Japan at 33. My experience there tells me if I want to learn Chinese and actually remember it I need to move to China for 6-8 years. Given I only have 20-30 years left and probably less in pure freedom of movement (meaning my body will get old and limit where I live and what I can do), then ATM I only get to choose 1, 2 or 3 more major things to do with my life. If I could live forever I'd choose to do all of them knowing I have plenty of time left. I'd spend 8+ years in China. Maybe 6+ years in Germany and 6+ in France and 6+ in Italy and 6+ in Spain and a few in South American countries and then others. I'd go back to school and learn various topics spending several years in each.
I don't agree with your assertion wanting to live a long long time has anything to do with ego. People used to only live to an average of 30. Today I saw a program on Japanese TV showing they have 60000 people over 100 years old. They showed several having productive lives, some were still running stores. One was a hairdresser. She still loved meeting and talking to people while cutting their hair. She was 102. The current stats say that 60k number will be 120k in only 3 more years.
What does the fact the people in the past died have anything to do with anything? People in the past died of all kinds of diseases so people now are ego driven to use the tech that prevents those diseases? I also see no relation to empathy. In fact the older I get the more empathy I seem to have.
It's the definition of ego: a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance.
It's not a moral argument, it's the recognition that your desire to live all of those lives is an egotistical thing (this is not a judgment).
Poor people want be rich and have a Mansion not because the think they are important enough to have a Mansion, but because being able to afford a Mansion is better than not being able to afford a Mansion.
Common misconception. While median lifespan was that, it was heavily influenced by infant mortality.
It was bad, but it wasn't that bad
I'm not assigning moral right and wrong to it
That's the problem, clearly you are when you use that first word.
From an emotional point of view, I do not want my parents to die.
They're in 70s, but I think that the time they have left is too short. I'd like them to live to see their 80s, their 100s, their 200s. I would like them to be there in 20 years when the last of my children graduate university. I would like them to see their grandchildren get married, and celebrate the birth of their great grand children.
I do not want to see my friends die. I have been with them since we were 4 years old, and I'd like to celebrate life with them for more than the 30 years have left according to actuarial charts.
I do not want my mentors to die. They're already in retirement homes, but they have so much more to experience, but many won't see their life's work come to fruition.
I would like everyone I know to live to see their 300th birthday, and I would like to be there with them.
Is that forever? No.
Forever may be too long, but 70 years upon this earth is too short by far. If living to see 500 healthy years is within the grasp of our technology, we should seize upon it.
I do not think this view is egotistical, or selfish. A world where no one dies except by accident or deliberate choice would be a much better world than what we have today.
Too often 'live forever' posts focus on the greats of history, theorising what would happen if they lived longer... but I challenge you to think of it in a more personal respect. Do you want your friends and family to die when they do not want to?
Knowing there's a time limit, you would want to extend it. Knowing there's no time limit, everything would stop having any meaning. Why would you get married and have kids if you could have it 100 years later?
I had thought the point was answering "why would you want to live forever?" so I gave it my best shot. :)
> Why would you get married and have kids if you could have it 100 years later?
Because you get the enjoyment of marriage and an expanded family now.
Frankly, speaking, I cannot believe people would be willing to delay satisfaction for 100s of years, merely because they are immortal.
But what if you're right? Well then...
If in fact living past 200 causes everything to be meaningless, we'll likely just find out people waste away from old age depression, and the point of the debate is moot.
If immortals stop caring about life because it is long lasting, we'll just find the first members of the immortal generation do worse than their mortal peers in all respects.
The question of "how much life is too much life" is something I would rather find out through primary research on people who are 500 or more years old, instead of debating in the hypothetical.
Practically though, I doubt immortality is within the grasp of this current generation. Research into 'immortality' is just using forever as an ideal---not as an expectation of what will really be delivered upon.
Extending life by a few more decades is a valid goal for our generation.
You already raised 4 generations of humans by now or you can still do the same thing because you're not even half way your life. Why would you want to do it now when your "teenage" years last 50 years and your "twenties" 100. You can experience everything, just for longer.
>>> If immortals stop caring about life because it is long lasting, we'll just find the first members of the immortal generation do worse than their mortal peers in all respects.
500 year life expectancy vs immortality is another discussion.
>>> Practically though, I doubt immortality is within the grasp of this current generation.
Yeah, I know. It's all hypothetical for us
If biology were no constraint, I can imagine some people would have children once every hundred years, and spend the next century shepherding them into good position in their growing dynasty.
That said, with vastly increased life spans, the whole notion of reproduction and marriage would take on new meaning, and I doubt many of the ideas we ascribe to today will be of much concern in the future.
> Yeah, I know. It's all hypothetical for us
Yes, which is why I don't see much of a reason to be so pessimistic. Those whom want to live forever---hypothetically will. Those who do not, as they are bored or tired, will choose not to continue onwards.
I can imagine a future of mostly happy immortals.
Nobody is important and nobody deserves anything. There's no outside force making decisions about who is allowed to have what. You get what you figure out how to get and you keep it as long as you figure out how to keep it.
> It's purely an ego driven thing based on us as individuals.
But assigning yourself to be the arbiter of who is or isn't "important" enough to "deserve" an extended lifespan isn't ego-driven?
> If you can live for 150 years and not get worn down by the things people do to each other, more power to you.
If you're going to let your own mood be dictated by the never-ending stream of terrible things in the world, I'd be surprised if you could make it through even a a normal lifetime. There's a lot of wonderful things in the world too. Why ignore those?
I realize I'm not important. My opinion that ultimately no individual is especially important is not based out of ego but a recognition that there's been like 10 billion of us and there will be more. But if you want it, have at it; maybe just consider why you want it.
If you're going to let your own mood be dictated by the never-ending stream of terrible things in the world, I'd be surprised if you could make it through even a a normal lifetime. There's a lot of wonderful things in the world too. Why ignore those?
That's what keeps me going.
However, if only one person can be immortal and for instance it's you Aaron... then you will become important out of virtue of your status. In a ten thousand years, you might be the only remaining record of the 21st century.
Beyond that, I want to live long enough to go on interplanetary and/or interstellar voyages. My desire to experience the marvels and mysteries of the universe are irrespective of humanity's conditions, whether we are facing an apocalypse or living in a global golden age.
Ok if not 10,000 years, why not 500? Still too much? Another 50 then? At what point does this argument tell me I should just kill myself right now because I don't "deserve" to live any longer?
It seems to me that you've chosen an arbitrary number (current average lifespan) and somehow chosen that to be "fair" and that living any longer is "selfish" and "ego driven".
In the absence of modern medicine we might live on average for 50 years. Is living that extra 30 years I might get from technology also selfish?
Hypothetically, if everyone can live forever if they want, is it ok then?
I'm surprised how strongly people feel about that post.
Seems ironic.
Indeed. I tell people all the time that poor/starving people should stop having children so that poverty or having to starve "dies out". I post here so that this message gets a much larger audience.
The only way in which sex helps you escape from poverty or starving is prostitution.
Moi? If I knew there was going to be a nuclear explosion I'd likely drive into the mushroom cloud. Perhaps in this case my imagination has gotten the better of me?
I work in areas that look at suffering and alleviating that (in ways most people on the planet don’t) but I also wonder and wish if I could live much longer than currently possible (longer life without tackling aging is pointless, IMO). The main reason for me is that I’m so utterly fascinated and awed by everything humans have accomplished and continue to accomplish (even though there are vast areas of improvement), and I really, really want to see humans going to another planet, setting up a colony, etc., among many other things. Life itself is such a wonder and seemingly miraculous (without assigning any supernatural motives).
Her help consisted in giving people constantly money, yet this only made them dependent of her and made her feel good.
Teach a man to fish, don't give him the fish.
Sadly this person passed away, we miss her a lot. she had really good intentions, but she wasn't really helping others.
I do think the depression comes from thinking about someone's situation, thinking "wow, that would be really sad/stressful/aggravating" and then starting to feel those emotions myself quite strongly. I would also say this tendency in myself increased a lot after becoming a parent. Avoiding reading the news has helped considerably, although that's not a great solution.
This path would lead directly to depression when you find out that the person you are emotionally dependent on isn't going to dedicate themself to making world look just to you.
Sorry if I'm reading too much into it, but this reads like the preamble to at least 10 articles people have handed to me in defense of Ayn Rand.
It doesn't make terribly much sense to imagine that people can be divided into two groups, "selfish" and "unselfish".
If your reasoning here is, that every person just does what feels good for them and therefore everyone is just "selfish", then that certainly isn't the whole picture why people do what they do.
There're certainly people doing things because they feel right, but it might not be a pleasure for them doing it.
Reducing everything to just being selfish doesn't make that much sense.
Person wishing to do the right thing and doing it ("unselfish")
Person doing the right thing against their wishes ("righteous")
Person wishing to do the right thing but not doing it (akrasia, you missed this one)
Person not doing the right thing and not wishing so ("selfish")
It's all about image of oneself and the experience of being burned by your actions, and every person out there shows plenty of behavior from all four quarters. So dividing people doesn't makes sense. Now, dividing actions does.
It seems it's more about you thinking that someone else does this here or in the study.
> Now, dividing actions does.
But the study is about actions and how people feel afterwards. It isn't about unselfish people, but about unselfish actions of people.
Sure, if they call the group 'unselfish people' it's not quite right, but that's not the point of the study.
Exceeeept when you're doing it arbitrarily to make a point?
If your sources are pretty high school why should anyone here listen to them?
Maybe not everything is an exercise in pushing an economic ideology.
https://evo-lutio.livejournal.com/509588.html for the quick description of the dynamics that I am referring to
Do you understand what's being conveyed here? Because I have no idea. But it doesn't sound overly legitimate to me. Of course, I didn't read the original research.
Depression may be a social illness because people with heighten empathy feel something is wrong with the system around them resulting in depression.
That seems a stronger argument then some macro economic argument about ill defined inequality.
That's the trade off for placing personal autonomy and self-expression at the paramount of social priorities--the guard rails come off.
Pedanticism aside, you make a very good point. I feel like Western society has been progressively getting more and more individualistic, with movements like Libertarianism on the rise. People who just want us all to get along are being down-trodden by the people who just want to get ahead.
I am pro individualism as it helps people define themselves. But as you pointed out when it is turned into a zero sum game of getting ahead in an already developed system it becomes a hollow view.
At some point I has to change to we for progress to happen. Strangely it was my extremely competitive corporate executive father who told me stop using I switch to we. A simple change that allowed me to see problems collectively instead of individualistically.
I put a large part of the blame on suburban development. What did we expect when we took social animals and then sequestered them into little boxes far away from where humans congregate - requiring you to fit into another little box to drive to the next box for your planned and highly controlled social experience. Nevermind the 1.5hrs+ the average suburban commuter sits in a little box 5 days a week.
I've been thinking of where to move to finally "settle down" in the US - and I'm coming up with a blank to be honest. I want to live somewhere I can be part of a community that shares my values and pulls together on a day to day basis - not just when some national news style emergency happens. I want daily interaction with my neighbors, forced or otherwise. I want the neighborhood kids to come running through my yard/sidewalk/whatever and to feed half a dozen of them lunch if they happen to be around when it's time, and to expect the same when my kid is off wandering and exploring.
The phrase it takes a village to raise a child is absolutely more true than I ever realized. We destroyed nearly all our villages, and now wonder why we're so divided and depressed. We no longer function as a society that shares the same major goals.
Talking to someone who lives in a semi-functional (I'm not sure functional exists in the US) community from a large city compared to the average suburbanite is eye opening in the disconnect from reality the latter has. I grew up around it, and simply didn't realize how damaging it is until I started to travel the world and see how actual communities function.
I know some folks do well in suburban-style living, but I would say that the majority who say they love it are actively being mentally and socially damaged and simply don't know it. The views they express are now completely normalized.
Oklahoma towns and cities tends to be more community centered. This may be do to a lack of money in a community or physical isolation from the rest of the country. But it is still there.
There are the same problems that other cities have, but we do provide good housing for most of our citizens. Tulsa, in particular through the work of the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma has ended chronic homeless within its borders. We are working on the same in Oklahoma City. We believe hard work matters and people can be leave poverty. The community providing the support systems for that to happen. Now, no one is going to give it to you. We just allow an affordable education path for betterment. And have a strong network of nonprofits and family foundations supporting programs of many kinds.
That is just in the area I am fortunate to work in. Oklahoma is not perfect one just has to look at where we stand national on things like teen pregnancy, women incarnation, drug abuse etc. It is just there are some places where community still matters and Oklahoma is one of those places.
It's not "Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up with Depression", it's "People who Wind Up with Depression Are More Likely to be Unselfish". Which kind of sounds like a non-story.
The article says, people who feel bad in response to specific types of stimulus (a perceived slight), rather than just shrugging it off, are more likely to develop full-blown clinical depression down the line.
Personally, my opinion is that the ambiguity of people's self-perceptions of their persona allows there to be an asymmetry between the harm they might get receiving advice about their personality and the benefit they might get from heeding advice about personalities that they can at least envision themselves as being perceived by others as having, if that makes sense. It probably isn't particularly empirical, but I don't know if we will get to a science of personality within our lifetimes (but (maybe..?) it would be nice to be proved wrong).
Nonsense. Depressed people are not just sad about everything, and depression affects selfish and unselfish people alike. Trying to derive general laws from shallow stereotypes is likely to compound misconceptions. Doing so to engage in pedantic critiques of a headline while ignoring the rest of the article is just a waste of time for everyone.
Likelihood as such doesn't have directionality; it expresses the frequency of co-occurence of two phenomena.
That is to say, "Unselfish People More Likely to be Depressed" doesn't assert causality as much, and "Depression Correlates with Unselfish Traits" even less.
> Here, we demonstrate that functional magnetic resonance imaging activity patterns in the amygdala and hippocampus induced by the inequity between the self and other rewards during an economic game can predict participants’ present and future (measured one year later) depression indices.
This seems to suggest that the headline is not terribly inaccurate with respect to the study itself, at least. Unselfishness (sensitivity to economic inequality) predicts markers for depression.
In his book Give and Take, Adam Grant talks about givers who are "otherish:" they demonstrate strong compassion for others, but not at the neglect of self-interest. Those who identified as otherish were least susceptible to burnout or compassion fatigue and could sustain their patterns for giving more help than they received for long periods of time.
I suspect there is some correlation between high concern for the interests of others and low prioritization of self-interest. But the real culprit is low self-interest, not high empathy or a strong concern for fairness.
I don't mean to offend or flame, but putting this bluntly feels important:
Why don't you want to keep living?
In my experience, many 'unselfish' people are people that don't take the time to study and understand human nature. Since it's human nature to be 'nice' they default to this behavior and never seem to get the results they are after. Hence the depression.
On the other hand, once you study, you'll learn that principled selfishness is the KEY to getting what you want. Hence better results and less depression.
Likewise, “unselfish” conflates two simultaneously-weighted perceptions virtue-signaling (appearance of giving) and genuine caring about individuals and people (substance of effective helping).
Another issue is that culturally, some people resent each other when there is difference in default attitude: selfish vs. unselfish. It may seem racist but I’ve observed an underlying tension between Arabs and Israelis arise from this difference in outlook in individual relationships.
By not doing what you find rewarding your brain doesn't have enough dopamine running through your system.
It's still a concept in development so I'm open to any counter arguments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter#Death