Home | Community | Message Board


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1 | 2 | Next >  [ show all ]
InvisibleSwami
Eggshell Walker

Registered: 01/18/00
Posts: 15,413
Loc: In the hen house
Selfishness is Good
    #2569408 - 04/16/04 08:35 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

But highly misunderstood. It an evolutionary mechanism, but can be expanded with awareness.

Scenario 1. Gnarg and Thog find a dead carcass and fight over it.
Immediate needs are all that is considered,

Scenario 2. Gnarg and Thog figure out that they can get even more food by hunting together.
This type of cooperation is a form of forward-thinking selfishness.

In any war between country X and country Y; both countries lose no matter whom is declared the victor. Whereas, with mutual cooperation, both countries win.

If we expanded our "selfishness" sufficiently into the future, then this world would indeed be a garden; all of us getting what we want. So it is not the motivation that is flawed, but the limited perspective in which it is applied.


--------------------



The proof is in the pudding.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineDroz
Love of Life
 User Gallery

Registered: 10/15/00
Posts: 2,746
Loc: Floorida
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569501 - 04/16/04 08:57 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Very well put Swami.

Now i'll trade you some of my tomatoes for those cucumbers.


--------------------
Evolution of Time.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblepsyka
Praetorian
 User Gallery

Registered: 06/09/03
Posts: 1,652
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569664 - 04/16/04 09:50 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

But, in the examples you have provided, it is not only your own well-being that is considered in the solution. Thats being selfless. Of course you have an intention for yourself and it will be provided for you, naturally, if you can trust that others will radiate the same selflessness as you.


--------------------
As the life of a candle,
my wick will burn out.
But, the fire of my mind
shall beam into infinite.


Edited by psyka (04/16/04 09:53 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisiblePhencyclidine
Molecule

Registered: 06/02/03
Posts: 2,915
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569679 - 04/16/04 09:57 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Excellent point Swami, and I think I agree. Part of an 'evolutionary' view of selfishness should take into account that selfishness to the point of eliminating all other or most or many other human beings would be highly negative because it would reduce the gene pool and thus limit possibilities for future adaptations. More cooperative forms of selfishness could be beneficial because they would maintain (or with mutations, enlarge) the gene pool and allow for better possibilities for future adaptations.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleJellric
altered statesman

Registered: 11/07/98
Posts: 2,261
Loc: non-local
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569685 - 04/16/04 09:58 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Be divinely selfish.


--------------------
I AM what Willis was talkin' bout.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleEvolving
Resident Cynic

Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569712 - 04/16/04 10:10 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

I don't like 'em, it's like eating snot off a tea cup saucer.



** edit **
:blush: Whoops!  Sorry, I thought this thread was about oysters.


--------------------
To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.'  Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence.  Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains.  Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.

Edited by Evolving (04/16/04 10:15 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisible2Experimental
Male User Gallery
Registered: 01/15/03
Posts: 18,073
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569719 - 04/16/04 10:14 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

edit

Edited by 2Experimental (04/16/04 10:15 PM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineViaggio
ChemicalConsumer

Registered: 07/05/03
Posts: 1,296
Last seen: 18 years, 6 days
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569734 - 04/16/04 10:29 PM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Cooperate? But wouldn't that require generous amounts of tolerance and eventual sharing?


--------------------
"...yet another in a long series of diversions an attempt to avoid responsibility."

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2569975 - 04/17/04 12:23 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

your trading one set of meaning off for another? What is the point? Your getting someone to look through a different vantage point.

People are fooling themselves when they think that any decision they make is not at least on some definable surface as "selfish". What are the extents of selfishness... does selfishness have a world of its own. Does selflesness find it self in sefishness....


--------------------
What?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibletrendalM
J♠
Male User Gallery

Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada Flag
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Zero7a1]
    #2570000 - 04/17/04 12:29 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Selfish (Self"ish) (?), a.

1. Caring supremely or unduly for one's self; regarding one's own comfort, advantage, etc., in disregard, or at the expense, of those of others. "They judge of things according to their own private appetites and selfish passions." Cudworth. "In that throng of selfish hearts untrue." Keble.
2. (Ethics) Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from gratifying one's own pleasure. "Hobbes and the selfish school of philosophers." Fleming.
3. Meanly covetous or avarcious in dealing with others; stingy.


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleZero7a1
Leaving YourWasteland

Registered: 10/23/02
Posts: 3,594
Loc: Passing Cloud
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: trendal]
    #2570067 - 04/17/04 12:52 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

right, but im going to guess swamis intentions are differently on this thread. Maybe... i presume hes trying to lead it back to definition 2.


--------------------
What?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineSource
Remainder of anUnbalancedEquation
Male

Registered: 07/28/03
Posts: 667
Loc: Outer Darkness
Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2570127 - 04/17/04 01:14 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Selfishness will never lead to self - the closer it gets, the further it will be. Because the self does not exist silly MAN!


--------------------
What you're searching for is what's searching.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineSource
Remainder of anUnbalancedEquation
Male

Registered: 07/28/03
Posts: 667
Loc: Outer Darkness
Last seen: 10 years, 3 months
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2570138 - 04/17/04 01:21 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Swami,

Beautiful post man! I like the way you think! So the question is Swami: Why are our "leaders/slave holders" using the most primitive and short-term form of selfishness (direct, immediate competition) and why haven't they devoloped to the more sophisticated level of cooperative selfishness?

Are they really so far behind evolutionarily, or do they know time is short?


--------------------
What you're searching for is what's searching.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineAlbino_Jesus
Clearly Retarded
 User Gallery

Registered: 09/14/02
Posts: 1,698
Loc: Construction ahead...
Last seen: 14 years, 2 months
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Source]
    #2570480 - 04/17/04 08:15 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Quote:

Source said:
Why are our "leaders/slave holders" using the most primitive and short-term form of selfishness (direct, immediate competition) and why haven't they devoloped to the more sophisticated level of cooperative selfishness?




they've been allowed to.
and there's not a whole lot they're smart enough to figure out for themselves...


--------------------
The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocities with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door.
-Ralph Nader


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineGazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2570495 - 04/17/04 08:27 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Greed which could be seen as a grossly exagerated form of selfishness is not good in my current opinion. It could well be the one of the root causes of much which is wrong with the world today.


--------------------
Always Smi2le

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinedaba
Stranger
 User Gallery

Registered: 12/30/02
Posts: 3,881
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2570498 - 04/17/04 08:36 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Maybe this thread should be entitled: Cooperation is Good, since cooperation is socially represented as a "good" thing.


--------------------
Fold for The Shroomery!

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblekaiowas
lest we baguette
 User Gallery

Registered: 07/14/03
Posts: 5,501
Loc: oz
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2570518 - 04/17/04 08:54 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

so swami...do we have the capacity to help others simply by jsut wanting to? or is that just some flimsy pipe dream?


I agree we should work together, but working together for mea at least will only truley work if we are out for each other more than we are for ourselves. we've been tring to out-do each other for some time and it really hasn't helped much, or has it??

are you saying underneath all of our actions is a plan (consciously) to benefit ourselves? hmmmm....


--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineGazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: daba]
    #2570526 - 04/17/04 09:04 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

Cooperation is good, thats why society represents it thus!


--------------------
Always Smi2le

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleSwami
Eggshell Walker

Registered: 01/18/00
Posts: 15,413
Loc: In the hen house
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: kaiowas]
    #2570586 - 04/17/04 09:29 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

are you saying underneath all of our actions is a plan (consciously) to benefit ourselves? hmmmm....

Of course it is though not always consciously.


--------------------



The proof is in the pudding.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineGazzBut
Refraction

Registered: 10/15/02
Posts: 4,773
Loc: London UK
Last seen: 2 months, 24 days
Re: Selfishness is Good [Re: Swami]
    #2570617 - 04/17/04 09:57 AM (19 years, 11 months ago)

I dont see how you can claim that as a fact. You believers annoy me with your bold unsubstantiated claims!  :smirk:


--------------------
Always Smi2le

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1 | 2 | Next >  [ show all ]


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* "Fear" & "Instinct" as two DIFFERENT "Senses".....(?)
( 1 2 all )
eMotionALLmotion 2,545 30 05/04/05 11:06 PM
by Psychoactive1984
* Instinct = Reincarnation = Oversoul ? HagbardCeline 1,314 7 04/17/09 07:52 AM
by HagbardCeline
* Explaining why life after death exists
( 1 2 3 4 5 all )
dumlovesyou 7,378 92 04/05/03 12:36 PM
by buttonion
* Does enlightenment exist?
( 1 2 3 all )
dblaney 3,565 47 08/07/05 11:48 AM
by Quoiyaien
* Instinct
( 1 2 all )
Swami 3,596 35 10/23/04 05:07 PM
by Huehuecoyotl
* Dose God exist? Take a look around.
( 1 2 3 4 all )
Bavet 6,997 68 02/06/03 10:46 AM
by Strumpling
* Is it selfish to bring new life into the world?
( 1 2 3 all )
MOTH 4,671 52 01/18/06 08:05 AM
by cookeman
* Are relationships selfish?
( 1 2 3 all )
silversoul7 5,515 54 08/20/04 06:39 PM
by Mad_Buhdda_Abuser

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, DividedQuantum
3,959 topic views. 1 members, 8 guests and 25 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.028 seconds spending 0.007 seconds on 16 queries.