Coronavirus

[mvgulik]

Coronavirus has just shown me that people can be very selfish when it comes to minor inconveniences

Can?
A slot machine can give the jackpot. (A mere unconnected statement of fact.)
As usual there is a little bit more to it, if one digs a little deeper.
just some google search'

Perhaps the system in which people life might have something to do with (general) human behavior too.

. . .

Reuters, Greenland, News (2021-07-30)
lol ... "Pick your leaders with care" comes to mind.

[Regnurr]

Coronavirus has just shown me that people can be very selfish when it comes to minor inconveniences

Can?
A slot machine can give the jackpot. (A mere unconnected statement of fact.)
As usual there is a little bit more to it, if one digs a little deeper.
just some google search'

Perhaps the system in which people life might have something to do with (general) human behavior too.

. . .

Reuters, Greenland, News (2021-07-30)
lol ... "Pick your leaders with care" comes to mind.

If talking about evidence for human beings being inherently selfish or altruistic it's important to note that studies conflict on this issue and there isn't a consensus on that issue. This is an old perspective but it is still relevant today on the idea of altruism in and of itself as an ultimately self-fulfilling act.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals ... B80FC68210

"A critical assumption in human sciences are that people's choices in those situations are individualistic", "converting the issue into a selfish non-dilemma". If my group is healthy my group will support me more and thus I will benefit from it on the personal level and in an evolutionary sense at a gene level. Cooperation is great for you because more people doing work on something makes the task easier and a system of people cooperating can produce efficient technologies that make the individual's life easier. Though the creation of the tractor required many people (this is why great man theory is wrong too, because great men of history did not exist in a vacuum, but had an enabling environment).

This is getting derailed from what I was originally talking about. When I'm talking about people's trite inconveniences and not doing something for the greater good I can give you examples which are just plain evidence of stupidity and or selfishness. Anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers, climate change denialists, oil companies suppressing their own discoveries on the effects of their mining and oil exploitation to keep profitting from it, businesses lobbying against environmental and public interests to get a bigger pocket. Refusal to give public works attention or to nationalize healthcare because it's someone else's problem, drug companies forcing people to pay a premium on life saving medicine because the companies unlike every other developed country in the world except the US, gives advantage to the government in determining prices of those drugs instead of the companies who are invested in making a 5 Cent pill into a 500 Dollar pill.

For some of these you could argue selfishness or not, though, you can't argue that all their motivations are at their core rationally selfish. Selfishness for the betterment of myself in such a way that is conducive to other people's health and mine? Good. Selfishness in the sense that slavery is a historical fact?

[mvgulik]

>"studies conflict on this issue and there isn't a consensus on that issue"

So 'you' say. Not sure what you point with that is though.
To me that argument has also lost its value, as I have seen it being used (in general) to often for the wrong reasons.

Without including nurture/environment, inherent natural behavior, in relation to humans, becomes somewhat of a meaningless subject.

>"This is getting derailed from what I was originally talking about."

Perhaps you did not translated that what was on your mind sufficiently into your text version of it.
What was your point? Other than that you seemed to have gained some local insides into human behavior (based on how something, corona in this case, was handled worldwide).
(you have not say over how other will, or 'should' for that matter, interpret you text. You can only hope they match your expectations.)

. . .

Anyway. As this is a corona topic, not a 'inherent human behavior' topic. Some nice Corona news.
Big Pharma is going to raise the price of there vaccines.
No surprise there of course. Just capitalism doing what its intended to do. Not sure one can really blame them either. Its not there fault that divided nations can be easily conquered.

[Regnurr]

>"studies conflict on this issue and there isn't a consensus on that issue"

So 'you' say. Not sure what you point with that is though.
To me that argument has also lost its value, as I have seen it being used (in general) to often for the wrong reasons.

Without including nurture/environment, inherent natural behavior, in relation to humans, becomes somewhat of a meaningless subject.

>"This is getting derailed from what I was originally talking about."

Perhaps you did not translated that what was on your mind sufficiently into your text version of it.
What was your point? Other than that you seemed to have gained some local insides into human behavior (based on how something, corona in this case, was handled worldwide).
(you have not say over how other will, or 'should' for that matter, interpret you text. You can only hope they match your expectations.)

. . .

Anyway. As this is a corona topic, not a 'inherent human behavior' topic. Some nice Corona news.
Big Pharma is going to raise the price of there vaccines.
No surprise there of course. Just capitalism doing what its intended to do. Not sure one can really blame them either. Its not there fault that divided nations can be easily conquered.

Explain to me why I shouldn't make the normative statement that anti-maskers who are more concerned about 'muh freedom' shouldn't just be described as selfish?

[MagicManICT]

>"studies conflict on this issue and there isn't a consensus on that issue"

So 'you' say. Not sure what you point with that is though.
To me that argument has also lost its value, as I have seen it being used (in general) to often for the wrong reasons.

i'm going to say that studies really are inconclusive, or rather, having reached a conclusion, it's "we can't predict it." Some people really do act out of a fully selfish ego and have little consideration for others. Others act out of very altruistic needs and pretty much counterbalance the fully selfish. If anything, humanity as a whole leans a bit more to the altruistic side overall, but at something akin to a (pulled out of my ass value) 501:500 ratio. I think it more comes down to how immediate the threat is, and how easily perceived it is. Toss in a generous helping of misinformation, decline in science... well, education in general, and enough politics to make a zealot swoon, and you get the situation of today in regards to vaccinations.

No surprise there of course. Just capitalism doing what its intended to do. Not sure one can really blame them either. Its not there fault that divided nations can be easily conquered.

Funny how so many cyberpunk stories start out with just this scenario....

[Regnurr]

Whether or not people are inherently selfish or taught to be wasn't really relevant to how people are and I gave good examples for a loss of faith in humanity.

[mvgulik]

No surprise there of course. Just capitalism doing what its intended to do. Not sure one can really blame them either. Its not there fault that divided nations can be easily conquered.

Funny how so many cyberpunk stories start out with just this scenario....

No doubt, by prognostic story tellers.

[Regnurr]

Late stage capitalism. Includes stuff like a massive gulf in equity, only solution to that is wealth redistribution. And for some reason everyone is very protective of the 1% of people who exploit them.

[AtoB]

Explain to me why I shouldn't make the normative statement that anti-maskers who are more concerned about 'muh freedom' shouldn't just be described as selfish?

Because framing the ones opposing what is done in the name of Corona as 'anti-maskers' is cutting the issue short, by miles?

And for some reason everyone is very protective of the 1% of people who exploit them.

Interesting coincidence, right?

[BoxingRock]

Explain to me why I shouldn't make the normative statement that anti-maskers who are more concerned about 'muh freedom' shouldn't just be described as selfish?

Because framing the ones opposing what is done in the name of Corona as 'anti-maskers' is cutting the issue short, by miles?

There are millions of people who's retardation doesn't go much deeper than simple anti-mask mandates. There have been 100s of protests that have focused on this and this alone. Desperately bored people who conveniently forgot that 90% of their lives are regulated by simple, harmless rules and suggestions that only aim to keep the public safe, like wearing seatbelts in cars. The absolute epitome of human selfishness, sad and disgusting behaviour.

That being said, If your anti-mask sentiments are only part of some grander conspiracy, like thinking that coronavirus isn't real, that it's manmade and that mask mandates are part of some kind of martial-law like state aiming to regulate the masses then I'm not sure if I would label that as selfish. We don't call mentally disabled people selfish for lacking the awareness needed to care for others because they are hardly able to care for themselves.