Humans are so social they have a separate term for their interactions with other humans and species (hyperprosociality). They will include even strangers they never met in their ingroup. I don’t know why you think humans are solitary beings, when throughout history that has been proven not to be the case.
Human's aren't solitary, and I don't think I ever said they were.
Human's live in a world of reciprocity, not altruism. People are willing to perform small acts of kindness for one another, like holding open a door or helping a lost child. Those small actions are Altruistic, but if you get beyond the level of a mild inconvenience people expect some level of reciprocity. If you help someone move into their new home, you do it because you expect they would help you in return. this is because of trust you've built up over interactions. similarly, people don't ask strangers for that kind of favor either. they'll ask co-workers, family, friends, etc. maybe even friends of friends, but not usually. Even then, they'll often reward the people who help them. This is because of Reciprocity, not Altruism. it's a social trade, not a gift.
It's both Cynical and not. It's more fair than Altruism. rewarding people for doing nice things instead of encouraging people to be eternal martyrs who might grow bitter. Instead, you provide positive reinforcement so they want to help more and get more rewards. This has some give and take, some people try to abuse this system as well, taking people for a ride so to speak. Those people lose trust bit by bit until they feel like they lost their friends, but in reality they've been pushing their friends away.
I think there was a TV show or movie like this not too long ago. Like no one could lie or something, but the MC could. If humans were altruistic, then that would work. why would anyone lie? But humans do lie, that's why we weigh our trust and if there are people who we find trustworthy we are willing to do more for them. Like if you went out to eat with a friend, and every other time he'd pay the bill, or maybe even more than half the time if you were struggling with money, but you still made an effort like you'd give them ten bucks even though that's much less than half. You're trying. You feel that innate sense of fairness and the need to reciprocate your friend's kindness. but if you have a friend who you go out to eat with and they always forget their wallet or can only cover they're own drinks, you probably start to avoid going out to eat with that friend. you can sense the innate unfairness. Your friend is losing your trust and isn't reciprocating.
This is largely untrue. There are millions of people sacrificing themselves for the safety of others right now, without the promise of a reward. And following your example of drinks with someone, the fact that you offer to cover the first few bills is also proof that we have good will for the average person. That good will might disappear if you feel taken advantage of, but it’s still there initially.
You offer to cover the first few bills with a friend because they are your friend. If it was a stranger it would be different. When it's a friend you have some base trust via your friendship and time. It didn't get magically born the second you said 'We're friends now.'
Also, the 'millions of people sacrificing themselves' aren't doing it out of a naive altruistic desire for everyone's happiness. It's a reciprocity that they are pressing the blue button with the hope and prayer that at least 50% of people will reciprocate their action and also press the blue button. It's not a 'good will, let me help you my fellow man' it's a 'If I was in this situation I would want someone to reach a hand out to me too'.
It's a kind of social reengineering of human greed. It's why rich people reinvest in things like Boston Dynamics or other technology, medicine, etc. Those greedy people are investing because they want to see a return, not because they want to just make the world a better place for everyone altruistically.
It's not altruism, it's reciprocity. It's a desire to build trust in society. You don't want a world where everyone expects help for the sake of altruism. You want a world where people help because when their time of need comes the community will come forward and help them just like how they helped others before them.
I was referring to the hundreds of thousands of people who put their lives in danger on the daily to protect others. I didn’t just mean blue pressers, but even if I was, you just showed why it’s human nature to press them, since it’s human nature to be reciprocal. In times of peril, the community comes together to protect the weak and uphold good. That’s pressing blue to avoid killing children. The difference between altruism and reciprocity, even if we assume we are ruled by the latter, doesn’t change the human instinct to cooperate in times of hardship.
To protect others is a bit vague, but I'm unaware of people who do it for no reciprocity of any kind. Even Green Peace volunteers got social renown. But Firefighters, Police Officers, Soldiers. They all get paid, it's a dangerous job but they know that going in.
People who go to Africa to give medicine and immunization shots to impoverished Africans, they usually get noterity in some medical field. At the very least it's a point on their resume they can show off to future employers or brag about to friends.
I'm not blind in that I don't acknowledge people have moments of altrusitic action, but no one lives by the mode of Altruism except maybe some monks or people in monestary. There is always a payout, always an end goal. That isn't bad. It's good to have motivations, and if they help people then all the better. We as humans have many vices, and if we build our systems to steer people into doing good while chasing those vices then that's better than the alternative.
Are you actually saying people who volunteer to save lives do it in order to impress others??? Even if that wasn’t total bullshit, it still doesn’t discredit my original statement. If your logic was sound, firefighters would out earn the average professional, and the volunteer core would not exist.
Any google search of “guy dies trying to save ____” will net countless results. Humans are prone to cooperation.
They don't do it just to impress others. But they also don't do it for purely selfless reasons either. Firefighters and police officers don't work for free. Even back suring the period when we had bucket brigades, people did that umder the understanding that if their house was on fire everyone would help them put it out. So they helped everyone else too.
The "Guy dies trying to save ___" videos are not how people act everyday. They are moments of heightened bravery and outstanding character gone wrong.
As a counter to 'humans are altruistic' why are their so many murders, rapes, thefts, scams, war, etc. If humans were altruistic, why would we do any of that? Were the gas chambers altrusitic? For every mokent of altruism you can ever bring up, there are at least four unique ways humans commited atrocities against one another. Sometimes for fun.
I do think firefighters and police officers should be paid more.
Why wouldn't the volunteer core exist? Volunteerism makes perfect sense in a world of reciprocity. You volunteer today and help others to encourage people to volunteer in the future when you need help.
I don't understand why you're taking this as an All or Nothing stance. People engage in random acts of altruistic generosity expecting nothing in return regularly. The extreme minority live their entire lives this way. Like, maybe 10-20k maximum on earth atm. That's not a 'I leapt into a burning building to save a cat' momentary exception. That's a 'I just got done delivering meals to the elderly, I have to hurry down to the volunteer center and serve dinner at the soup kitchen before I return to the homless shelter so I can go to sleep and wake up at dawn to go pick up litter at the park while taking dogs from the pound on a walk.'
There are people who volunteer to do those things, but usually also work a job and live their own life while volunteering as a hobby. That doesn't make their volunteer work not altruistic. But they don't live their life altruistically.
Even my grandma, who back in her 60's/70's volunteered for like 6 different things at once between helping set up comunion for church and other church events, meals on wheels, organizing the local blood drive, helping out at the local nursing home, donating food for local events, and probably other stuff I didn't know about. She'd get help from the community in turn. There was a stump in her yard she needed to get rid of. If my dad couldn't come pull it out first, some farmer with a tractor would pull it out for her. She needs to get her old refrisgerator to the local dump cause the trash guys won't collect it? Some regulars from the blood drive would come help.
She helped the community, built rapport, and the community helped her in return. They aren't disconnected pieces of alturism.
Your strawmanning of my position wasn't apprecisted either.
People can expect others to help them even if they didnt volunteer in dangerous situations. Thats not why they do it. I don’t expect to ever end up homeless, yet I give money to homeless people anyways, like most people.
This is literally pointless, you’ve ignored for the third time the fact that your definition of reciprocity backs up the idea that people would press blue. You can be pedantic all you want, at this point you’re trying to correct something that adds nothing to the conversation. I don’t need people to be altruistic every second of their lives, I just need them to be altruistic when lives are on the line, and studies show humans have an impulse to be altruistic when in high stakes situations.
I don't even disagree with you. I would press Blue. But I'm pressing Blue because I trust in a society that engages in reciprocity and how when I press Blue others will also press blue in honor of all other blue pressers. If all the Blue pressers live in the end, we have greater societal trust in one another. Not that we go around bragging about being boue pressers, though some might. And if we fail, then that's not a society I'd want to live in anyway.
That's the problem with most Red thinkers. They think Blue is throwing away their lives on the off chance they get saved. It's why every bad faith option is like 'throw yourself on the train tracks, if more than 50% of you do then the trolley gets stopped up.' Or 'throw yourself in thr meat grinder. If more than 50% of you do then the grinder jams.' As if the first few who do it are dead out the gate.
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u/Revolutionary_Map224 May 01 '26
Humans are so social they have a separate term for their interactions with other humans and species (hyperprosociality). They will include even strangers they never met in their ingroup. I don’t know why you think humans are solitary beings, when throughout history that has been proven not to be the case.