Origin of Altruism - Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights

http://www.aynrandcenter.org

Yaron Brook discusses the historical and sociological origins of altruism.
Excerpted from the Q&A of the lecture "Capitalism without Guilt," given at UC Berkeley on November 24, 2008.

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[organdva]

Do what is good for the economy, nation? Isn't that in the core of capitalist ideology? Workers interests are the bosses interest? This is manipulation by the bosses. Workers solidarity and mutual aid realize the strength of numbers, collective cooperation. Individual competition only benefits the boss, capitalist. Class-consciousness is is beyond altruism-egoism false dichotomy.

[auret]

sociopathic nonsense.

[Unputonombre84]

@logtype47 Ummm... If she was a tax paying citizen during her productive years then she was more than entitled to use madicare, after all, she paid for it through taxes. It wouldn't be fair to deprive her of her hard earned money for so many years of her life and not to expect her to claim what belongs to her. Mind you, it was a service she paid for involuntarily. I do not know much about the medicare system but it only makes sense to use it if you paid for it.

[Diamonddavej]

Altruism, Indirect Reciprocity, is simple to understand:

"If I help you, my reputation will be improved and thus someone else will help me."

In Rand's time, people only knew about and studied reciprocity between two people, they did not explore the dynamics and evolution of reciprocity within groups. Altruism is also known as "Survival of the Nicest". Nice people are more successful.

Nowak, M. A., & Sigmund K., 2005. Evolution of Indirect Reciprocity. Nature, 437(7063), 1291-1298.

[Trinivalts]

The fact that altruism can be manipulated doesn't mean it's artificial. What load of dumbcrap this is. That sort of argument can be applied to just about anything.

[logtype47]

It amazes me how these free market dupes continuously yank from Ayn Rand's dusty utters. This morally bankrupt hypocrite applied for social security and used medicare to pay for her cancer treatment.

[djupp]

Aristotle was certainly an egoist. I'm sure someone will be able to quote me any passage in his work that supports that theory. As far as I am concerned it's about as plausible as saying that Ayn Rand was a communist.

[Rodriguez8611]

@DonMeaker How laughable is that you say that evolutionary biology says "altruism doesn't exist" but can't quote a evolutionary biologist?, very. In other words, you're a 100% phony caricature.

[Rodriguez8611]

@DonMeaker How laughable is that you're not basing your argument on a scientific theory, you're basing your argument on a thesis?, I would say very much. How laughable is that you can't direct me to any work based on such thesis?, very. How laughable is that I invite you to address the other relevant example but you're unwilling to?, very.

......

[DonMeaker]

@Rodriguez8611 I don't need to know everything to refute your argument when you make your argument based on a falsehood. I don't know about all animals, but because of my knowledge of Dr. Hobbs' thesis, I knew your premise of the squirrel was false. Since you used a falsehood in your argument, your argument fails, and the rest need not be addressed. Thinking that I need to address your delusions is itself one of your delusions.