🚀 go-pugleaf

Kym HORSELL wrote in message <810acu$rms$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>...
>"ant" <dont-look@evil.spam> writes:
>>Kym HORSELL wrote in message <80o8a4$3gq$1@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>...
>>>nenosed@apex.met.au (Ned Latham) writes:
>>>>Kym HORSELL <kym@cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
>>>>> nenosed@apex.met.au (Ned Latham) writes:
>>>>> > Kym HORSELL <kym@cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
>>>>> > > One of the classic methods of determining "the good" when it
comes
>>to
>>>>> > > choices between actions is to select the alternative that is most
>>contrary
>>>>> > > to one's self interest.
>>>>> > Well, there's a self-defeating definition, if ever I heard one.
>>>>> Well, that's the view of people that DEFINE "the good" to be their
>>immediate
>>>>> self-interest. ;-)
>>>>----snip----
>>>>Others too, Kym. Those to whom self-interest is irrelevant to the
>>definition
>>>>of ``the good'', for example.
>>>As I said, some people (GenX-ers, eg) define the 2 to be the same thing.
>>hey, i am a genX-er as you put it
>
>There's an easy test.  Do you define "the good" to be the same as
>"my self interest" (AKA "Greed is Good")?
>
>I didn't think so. ;-)
>
>>and i i would invariably rescue the
>>child, if it was then possible to return for the cash without undue
>>personal risk i would do so. my motto is people before profit. i suspect
>>that if someone did a qunatative study of attitudes there would be as
many
>>baby boomers and whatever the generation before them are called who are
>>also as greedy and self intrested, 100 years of intensive corporate
>>properganda has had its desired effect, elevating greed and gluttony from
>>mortal sins to a role models for society.
>
>I think psychologists of various ilks have already beaten you to the
>punch there.
>
>While self interest is pretty much a biological drive -- it obviously
>does have some positive benefit in propagating a species if its
>members at least TRY to look after their individual interests --
>co-operating at the expense of the self has an important role.
>People looking into  (e.g.) Prisoner's Dilemma type problems
>that are said to abount in nature (e.g. one  herd animal
>deliberately falling behind to "sacrifice" itself to the wolves)
>argue it's at least as important and, so it can be argued,
>allows some kind of optima to be reached that are seemingly impossible
>to achieve by purely selfish means.
>
>There have been a growing number of studies that suggest Western society
>is in the process of "shifting gears" to elevating self-interest
>as a chief "good", at the expense of self sacrifice of even
>the most trivial kind, e.g. simple patience.
>
>At one time -- at least in the West -- doing what was "just" was
>supposedly the "right thing to do". In those good old days (say, c 10th
C),
>lopping off someone's hands for being a thief was "justice" and therefore
>"good". Obeying the king was "just" and "good"; disobedience was,
>of course, unjust and therefore not nice at all. ;-)
>
>A bit later, the idea of "kindness" crept into the idea of "goodness".
>It wasn't then so much a matter of being "just", but being "just"
>in just (sorry) the right way(s).
>
>These developments are obviously reflected in legal systems
>through history. Hamurabi was worried about getting his tax money;
>Middle Ages law was worried about protecting privs for the
>well-to-do; a bit later the law was worried about protecting the
>rights of the badly-done-by (be that at the expense of the privs
>of the well-to-do or not).
>
>Some people thought the progression was "improvement".
>
>In our part of the human era -- with its emphasis on
>mass-learning-by-observing-the-idiot-box (an instrument of the Devil if
>ever there was one; especially as it's attuned to the human's natural
>learning mechanisms and thereby able to get by most built-in safeguards)
>and (some say) *hence* superficiality, alienation, inability by many
>to see the need of various behaviours, mass depression, etc...
>the pendulum (that never swung in just the one b&w plane anyway ;-) is
>moving over more to the "me me me" and "*my* individual rights at all
>costs" axis.
>
>Various social experiments -- e.g. those related to the evaluating
>the societal levels of the so-called "free rider" problem (whereby some
>social good is provided by members co-operating, but being subject to
>individuals that refuse to put themselves out for the co-operating part,
>yet feel entitled to the payoff from the co-operation of others) --
indicate
>there is a significant difference between the actions & outlooks and
social
>skills of those born (say) pre 1950  and those born (say) in the past
>couple of decades. Various not-always-very-soundly-reasoned studies
>relating to inter-generation comparisons seem to be iterating toward a
>consensus in that regard.
>


ahh, so i and my rather select group of friends are a bit of an aberation,
although it does make sense, with the increasing popularity of television
coinciding with the change.


ant