Pathological Altruism

[Canard DuJour]

So, donations to charities, bad or good? Making certain grandma doesn't freeze or boil to death, bad or good?

Actually, mostly bad.

The problem is the high percentage of "charity" money that goes to funding the charity rather than doing good works. All in all it's a very inefficient way of providing help.

So Libertarians who insist that social insurance schemes, welfare etc should be replaced with charity are pathological altruists.

Yay, I think at last we have a bona fide example!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Loren: You keep talking about emotional arguments trumping reason , also emotion trumping facts. You seem oblivious to the idea of rationally considered intent. Otherwise, you are merely engaging in thinly veiled ad hominem attacks on my reasoning ability, not showing any actual counter to my ideas, just discounting them. I am NOT SELLING THE NOTION THAT EMOTIONS TRUMP FACTS. You are selling the notion that FEAR AND SUSPICION TRUMPS FACTS. Along with that notion is the unspoken imperative..."The frying pan is where you are and you had better stay there!"

So we shouldn't look to see if we are jumping from the frying pan to the fire?


Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

 

[arkirk]

Loren: You keep talking about emotional arguments trumping reason , also emotion trumping facts. You seem oblivious to the idea of rationally considered intent. Otherwise, you are merely engaging in thinly veiled ad hominem attacks on my reasoning ability, not showing any actual counter to my ideas, just discounting them. I am NOT SELLING THE NOTION THAT EMOTIONS TRUMP FACTS. You are selling the notion that FEAR AND SUSPICION TRUMPS FACTS. Along with that notion is the unspoken imperative..."The frying pan is where you are and you had better stay there!"

So we shouldn't look to see if we are jumping from the frying pan to the fire?


Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

You had better start looking. I have been looking now for about 71 years and know a few things. I also have some ideas how to get out of the frying pan. You keep attempting to characterize me as a careless person who isn't too bright. Why do you do this? Why don't you argue with me about the facts, and instead gravitate to psychological jargon and newspeak? I discuss environmental problems and you post economic graphs. Our economy is not doing too well by the American people these days. Our democracy is failing us, and you just say "we gotta be careful and go slow. It will take at least a hundred years to earn your freedom." when it is as simple as stop being a slave to a grossly unfair and dysfunctional economic system.

These systems are all man made and can and should be remade to fit the economy into the environment and better serve the general welfare of we the people. The preamble of our constitution is supposed to be a kind of general mission statement. The way I see it, we have abandoned the mission and gotten off on a side track ruled by oligarchs and Randian narcissists.

But then, that is just my perception of the situation and we better be careful.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Loren: You keep talking about emotional arguments trumping reason , also emotion trumping facts. You seem oblivious to the idea of rationally considered intent. Otherwise, you are merely engaging in thinly veiled ad hominem attacks on my reasoning ability, not showing any actual counter to my ideas, just discounting them. I am NOT SELLING THE NOTION THAT EMOTIONS TRUMP FACTS. You are selling the notion that FEAR AND SUSPICION TRUMPS FACTS. Along with that notion is the unspoken imperative..."The frying pan is where you are and you had better stay there!"

So we shouldn't look to see if we are jumping from the frying pan to the fire?


Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

No, it doesn't.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Loren: You keep talking about emotional arguments trumping reason , also emotion trumping facts. You seem oblivious to the idea of rationally considered intent. Otherwise, you are merely engaging in thinly veiled ad hominem attacks on my reasoning ability, not showing any actual counter to my ideas, just discounting them. I am NOT SELLING THE NOTION THAT EMOTIONS TRUMP FACTS. You are selling the notion that FEAR AND SUSPICION TRUMPS FACTS. Along with that notion is the unspoken imperative..."The frying pan is where you are and you had better stay there!"

So we shouldn't look to see if we are jumping from the frying pan to the fire?

Enough with the strawman arguments. You have yet to put forth a single actual example of "pathological altruism" as you have defined it.

Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

What a load of self-serving bullshit, which is also completely dragging the thread off-topic... again.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

Actually, I've never seen any evidence of this. I do see it as blaming the victim and rationalizations after the fact. I'm glad that life has worked out for you. If you want, I can relay many stories about friends and daily being really careful about what they did and fared worse for doing so.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So we shouldn't look to see if we are jumping from the frying pan to the fire?


Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

You had better start looking. I have been looking now for about 71 years and know a few things. I also have some ideas how to get out of the frying pan. You keep attempting to characterize me as a careless person who isn't too bright. Why do you do this? Why don't you argue with me about the facts, and instead gravitate to psychological jargon and newspeak? I discuss environmental problems and you post economic graphs. Our economy is not doing too well by the American people these days. Our democracy is failing us, and you just say "we gotta be careful and go slow. It will take at least a hundred years to earn your freedom." when it is as simple as stop being a slave to a grossly unfair and dysfunctional economic system.

These systems are all man made and can and should be remade to fit the economy into the environment and better serve the general welfare of we the people. The preamble of our constitution is supposed to be a kind of general mission statement. The way I see it, we have abandoned the mission and gotten off on a side track ruled by oligarchs and Randian narcissists.

But then, that is just my perception of the situation and we better be careful.

You still seem to be advocating leaping before you look if the current situation is bad.

 

[arkirk]

You had better start looking. I have been looking now for about 71 years and know a few things. I also have some ideas how to get out of the frying pan. You keep attempting to characterize me as a careless person who isn't too bright. Why do you do this? Why don't you argue with me about the facts, and instead gravitate to psychological jargon and newspeak? I discuss environmental problems and you post economic graphs. Our economy is not doing too well by the American people these days. Our democracy is failing us, and you just say "we gotta be careful and go slow. It will take at least a hundred years to earn your freedom." when it is as simple as stop being a slave to a grossly unfair and dysfunctional economic system.

These systems are all man made and can and should be remade to fit the economy into the environment and better serve the general welfare of we the people. The preamble of our constitution is supposed to be a kind of general mission statement. The way I see it, we have abandoned the mission and gotten off on a side track ruled by oligarchs and Randian narcissists.

But then, that is just my perception of the situation and we better be careful.

You still seem to be advocating leaping before you look if the current situation is bad.

You need to get a new violin. The old one just plays one note. It does not matter that there is hard evidence that we need to act on a large number of environmental fronts. You do not offer alternative solutions. You just assault me and not my arguments. I read it as an attempt to stifle debate.

The issue is whether or not there is such a thing as pathological altruism, not whether or not arkirk always recommends leaping before looking. How about getting back on topic? Do you have anything to say about that?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You still seem to be advocating leaping before you look if the current situation is bad.

You need to get a new violin. The old one just plays one note. It does not matter that there is hard evidence that we need to act on a large number of environmental fronts. You do not offer alternative solutions. You just assault me and not my arguments. I read it as an attempt to stifle debate.

The issue is whether or not there is such a thing as pathological altruism, not whether or not arkirk always recommends leaping before looking. How about getting back on topic? Do you have anything to say about that?

You're still doing it.

You say we must act. In many cases, act how? Kyoto, for example, was horribly flawed and we were right to not ratify it. It was a pretend solution which accomplished nothing but pretending to address the problem.

Before you take an important action you should do what you can to make sure it's a good action. The mere fact that action is needed is no reason to scrap this unless you're in a do-or-die type situation. (For example, using that untested treatment on the Ebola victims. At worst it could kill--but that was very likely anyway. It's not going to have any secondary effects.)

 

[DBT]

Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

Does environment, education, apptitude, opportunity, etc, account for nothing?

 

[Underseer]

Does it occur to you that much of the reason some of us fare better than others is how careful we are about what we do?

Does environment, education, apptitude, opportunity, etc, account for nothing?

Not unless those things can be shown to contribute to establishing a new overclass to rule over us. Then those things count for something. Otherwise, no one gives a shit.

 

[arkirk]

You need to get a new violin. The old one just plays one note. It does not matter that there is hard evidence that we need to act on a large number of environmental fronts. You do not offer alternative solutions. You just assault me and not my arguments. I read it as an attempt to stifle debate.

The issue is whether or not there is such a thing as pathological altruism, not whether or not arkirk always recommends leaping before looking. How about getting back on topic? Do you have anything to say about that?

You're still doing it.

You say we must act. In many cases, act how? Kyoto, for example, was horribly flawed and we were right to not ratify it. It was a pretend solution which accomplished nothing but pretending to address the problem.

Before you take an important action you should do what you can to make sure it's a good action. The mere fact that action is needed is no reason to scrap this unless you're in a do-or-die type situation. (For example, using that untested treatment on the Ebola victims. At worst it could kill--but that was very likely anyway. It's not going to have any secondary effects.)

What am I still doing, Loren? Demanding you stop evading the topic of this thread. It looked like our congress and our industrial giants did everything to discredit any agreement that would slow their growth in the slightest degree. You may be happy with the Koch brothers' explanation of life on this planet, but there was a problem to be addressed, Our national leadership made sure Kyoto would be useless. Kyoto was sabotaged. So was Copenhagen...and I am sure our heavy industrial sector is already working on keeping Paris from meaning anything. They have a lot of heavy drilling they want to be doing, and pipelines to build...never mind looking before you leap, Loren. The leaping will be done for us by heavy industry and the oil companies and there probably won't be any stopping it.

I agree with your idea of looking before taking action. So let us look at the Keystone Pipeline, the fracking going on all over our country, the profligate increase of offshore and onshore oil and gas leases that Obama brags about. That looks a lot like leaping into the fire to me. Oil and gas and coal companies can stop ripping our environment apart at any time and it won't be soon enough to avoid serious consequences anyway, but because you have a severely damaged environment is no reason to finish killing it off. Let's look at what used to be West Virginia and all the ruined townships...ruined by the coal industry and never compensated for the damage...and no chance we can afford the energy to rebuild these ruined watersheds and mountains. That was just a simple example of what leaping without looking looks like to me.

 

[Emily Lake]

I think we are at an impasse.

On one side of this debate are some people who believe that there exists at least some people who at least some of the time, allow their desire to pursue an action that is intended to be beneficial blind them to reasonably foreseeable negative consequences. I fall on this side of the argument.

. That still isn't "pathological altruism" though.

Fine. I still maintain that your objection is to the terminology not to the concept, but I honestly don't care enough to press it further.

 

[Emily Lake]

1. Who is "we?" Why do you imagine I haven't already looked. Why do you de facto assume I would willingly jump into the fire just to "do something?"

Well, based on the flow of this discussion, I imagine you haven't already looked and that you jump just to do something, because that's actually what you've said. Perhaps you should review the pertinent exchanges?

All too often we see <solution A> proposed as a remedy for <problem B>. Unfortunately, an examination of A shows that it's worse than doing nothing, but there are far too many who say "We have to do something about <B>, <A> is the only solution on the table, we need to do it!" Opposing <A> is taken as saying that nothing should be done about <B> when in reality it's saying we should look for better answers.

And while we are doing all this looking....do nothing?

{emphasis mine}

You're making my point here!

Ever hear of the expression "jumping from the frying pan to the fire"--this is a scenario in which it's defined that you're doing exactly that and yet you still are arguing we should jump.

When the fire gets hot enough, you are going to want to jump out of it.

{emphasis mine}

You said we need to do something even when the only proposed approaches have been shown to be detrimental. Your reply here doesn't even touch on this.

You may enjoy the comfort of your frying pan. People who do enjoy it usually have a little human padding between themselves and the surface of the pan. They are riding the shoulders of those who have to stand on the hot surface. So far, the heat hasn't reached you yet. What is "detrimental" about getting out of the pan. Those most interested in leaving will lower those who choose to stay off their shoulders and down into the hot oil. It is kind of sad that you think things are really okay there.

I am not evading anything. You are evading the question of privilege. You do not know "all the proposed approaches" and even if they have drawbacks, they are at least an acknowledgement of a real problem we are facing. In a democratic sense, those on the bottom getting their feet burnt should have some say in getting us out of the frying pan. If we fail to cooperate, we all go down. Wake up, Loren!

1) We aren't saying the frying pan is a good thing. We are saying to look before you jump to see if you're going to jump into the fire.

Aside from the fact that you very clearly and literally said that something should be done, even though that something is KNOWN to be worse than doing nothing (because that's the presented scenario)... The entirety of your argument rests on emotional appeals.

 

[Togo]

. That still isn't "pathological altruism" though.

Fine. I still maintain that your objection is to the terminology not to the concept, but I honestly don't care enough to press it further.

Yeah, you reached the same conclusion with me when I tried to make the same point. Before we rush into discussing 'people who allow their desire to pursue an action that is intended to be beneficial blind them to reasonably foreseeable negative consequences', whatever you choose to call them, we need to establish that it's a valid grouping. That is not just that such people exist, but that they are representative of some kind of systemic problem or effect that we should control for.

I'm not trying to be difficult here. But unless we can establish that, there is literally nothing to discuss, and people who are blinded by their desires are no more or less significant than those blinded by egg yolk.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You're still doing it.

You say we must act. In many cases, act how? Kyoto, for example, was horribly flawed and we were right to not ratify it. It was a pretend solution which accomplished nothing but pretending to address the problem.

Before you take an important action you should do what you can to make sure it's a good action. The mere fact that action is needed is no reason to scrap this unless you're in a do-or-die type situation. (For example, using that untested treatment on the Ebola victims. At worst it could kill--but that was very likely anyway. It's not going to have any secondary effects.)

What am I still doing, Loren? Demanding you stop evading the topic of this thread. It looked like our congress and our industrial giants did everything to discredit any agreement that would slow their growth in the slightest degree. You may be happy with the Koch brothers' explanation of life on this planet, but there was a problem to be addressed, Our national leadership made sure Kyoto would be useless. Kyoto was sabotaged. So was Copenhagen...and I am sure our heavy industrial sector is already working on keeping Paris from meaning anything. They have a lot of heavy drilling they want to be doing, and pipelines to build...never mind looking before you leap, Loren. The leaping will be done for us by heavy industry and the oil companies and there probably won't be any stopping it.

I agree with your idea of looking before taking action. So let us look at the Keystone Pipeline, the fracking going on all over our country, the profligate increase of offshore and onshore oil and gas leases that Obama brags about. That looks a lot like leaping into the fire to me. Oil and gas and coal companies can stop ripping our environment apart at any time and it won't be soon enough to avoid serious consequences anyway, but because you have a severely damaged environment is no reason to finish killing it off. Let's look at what used to be West Virginia and all the ruined townships...ruined by the coal industry and never compensated for the damage...and no chance we can afford the energy to rebuild these ruined watersheds and mountains. That was just a simple example of what leaping without looking looks like to me.

You're still evading the issue. Just because some problems have solutions doesn't mean we have answers for others.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What am I still doing, Loren? Demanding you stop evading the topic of this thread. It looked like our congress and our industrial giants did everything to discredit any agreement that would slow their growth in the slightest degree. You may be happy with the Koch brothers' explanation of life on this planet, but there was a problem to be addressed, Our national leadership made sure Kyoto would be useless. Kyoto was sabotaged. So was Copenhagen...and I am sure our heavy industrial sector is already working on keeping Paris from meaning anything. They have a lot of heavy drilling they want to be doing, and pipelines to build...never mind looking before you leap, Loren. The leaping will be done for us by heavy industry and the oil companies and there probably won't be any stopping it.

I agree with your idea of looking before taking action. So let us look at the Keystone Pipeline, the fracking going on all over our country, the profligate increase of offshore and onshore oil and gas leases that Obama brags about. That looks a lot like leaping into the fire to me. Oil and gas and coal companies can stop ripping our environment apart at any time and it won't be soon enough to avoid serious consequences anyway, but because you have a severely damaged environment is no reason to finish killing it off. Let's look at what used to be West Virginia and all the ruined townships...ruined by the coal industry and never compensated for the damage...and no chance we can afford the energy to rebuild these ruined watersheds and mountains. That was just a simple example of what leaping without looking looks like to me.

You're still evading the issue. Just because some problems have solutions doesn't mean we have answers for others.

I think Arkirk may be noting that the industrial powers have been leaping without looking for centuries now. Got to the point that the Federal Government had to step in with things like the EPA and FDA.

It seems whenever the status quo is questioned, we hear about how we can't risk it, there could be dangers. Can't raise tax rates on stock gains, doomed! Can't raise emission standards on coal, doomed!

Seems whenever the left says we should be looking where we are headed, they are handwaved away. Of course, when the right-wing wants to deregulate an industry like derivative trading, they wanted the nation to leap without looking.

Of course, all of this is off-topic to "pathological altruism".

 

[ksen]

I'm still trying to figure out how manufacturing paint is an altruistic endeavor.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm still trying to figure out how manufacturing paint is an altruistic endeavor.

Manufacturing "lead" paint, that is. For home interiors, paint itself was preferred and altruistically decided upon as being better due to wallpaper being able to be a source for contagions.

Some people just don't understand the difference between altruistic blindness (something that is quite rare as usually those promoting it lack any power to push it ahead) and unintended consequences (something human history is rife with).

 

[Emily Lake]

Some people don't understand the difference between honest unintended consequences, and consequences that could easily have been avoided if the actor in question weren't so caught up in their pet project that they couldn't be bothered to think ahead and consider the potential outcomes...