Unselfish People Are More Likely to Wind Up With Depression (vice.com) 238
People with depression are more likely to feel bad in response to perceived inequality, according to a study published this week in Nature Human Behaviour. From a report: Simply, in experiments where participants were tasked with playing a game with a strong element of unfairness, those participants with higher levels of brain activity in depression-linked brain regions -- as recorded via fMRI scans -- were more likely to later demonstrate signs of clinical depression. This is a new test of an old idea, one that's been demonstrated in previous research. People with depression commonly demonstrate increased concern for others, or for the perspectives of others. More precisely, prosocial attitudes predict depression, which is in contrast to individualist attitudes. Individualist here basically just means selfish, or relatively selfish. The researchers behind the current study hypothesized that they would be able to observe these tendencies at the level of actual brain activity. Fortunately, there are some tried and true methods of testing prosocial behavior. One of these takes the form of what's known as an ultimatum game. The general idea is that participants are offered rewards that are to be shared among a group. Each offer differs in how much the participant gets in relation to the rest of the group, with prosocial participants more likely refuse larger personal rewards in favor of larger rewards going to everybody else. Individualists take the offer that best benefits them, while prosocial people are more concerned with other people in the group.
So true, especially here (Score:4, Funny)
I give and I give, lots of great comments, and then people say I'm an AC and worth less than nothing.
Re:So true, especially here (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
"AC" stands for "All Clothes", then?
Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The only error is the comment does not reflect society. Pro-social people are depressed because they live in psychopathic capitalist societies. Note, that in more socialist societies, those populations are much happier because they are not as actively preyed upon by psychopathic capitalists (for the idiots in the crowd, neither Stalinism nor Maoism is socialist they can be more readily described as monarchies, all monarchies are self appointed governments of one ruling by active extreme violence and nothing
Re: (Score:2)
There is also the philosophical debate, do people do good things, for a reward.
If the person who does good things, feels that they are not being treated fairly, then the depression may come from the fact that they are not getting the reward for their good deeds. So they are not being unselfish, but had a longer term selfishness.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm happy that neither you nor anyone close to you has suffered clinical depression, since otherwise you wouldn't say that.
Re: (Score:2)
I can confirm that depression also makes a lot of affected people not care anymore. That doesn't make them selfish, it just makes them not care. Different things.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, but we can sure appear as selfish.
Re: (Score:2)
...because other people are too selfish to realize we're not selfish?
My head is spinning.
No good deed goes unpunished. (Score:2)
Re: No good deed goes unpunished. (Score:2, Interesting)
Failures != nice acts
There are some very mean, selfish, and uncaring individuals that are extremely poor. They just don't grasp how to effectively exploit others. That being said, many times suicide is a selfish act which shows that depressed people can still be selfish. I wonder if these depressed individuals wouldnt be as depressed if they were more selfish in little things but still helped others towards the greater good. Kinda a release valve rather than letting it boil up and fester while being taken a
Re: No good deed goes unpunished. (Score:2, Insightful)
Simplifying suicide as a selfish act is just cheesy and pretentious. When will people actually take this sad problem seriously?
Re: (Score:3)
No kidding. When you're trying to escape the demons*, you don't care about the effect on others.
I wonder if these depressed individuals wouldnt be as depressed if they were more selfish in little things but still helped others towards the greater good.
Depressed people are normally selfish about the little things. Helping others for the common good is difficult but helpful.
*It felt like demons to me. Also, depression is an immaterial harmful thing that is some
Re: (Score:2)
many times suicide is a selfish act which shows that depressed people can still be selfish.
What the actual fuck are you talking about???
Re: (Score:2)
FTFY.
Re: (Score:2)
The nice guy is normally risk adverse. So they often will loose out, because the psychopath will take the risk.
flawed goals, premises, everything here (Score:1)
Life isn't like that, and it shouldn't be like that.
Re: (Score:2)
>In the "ultimatum" model, the rewards are shared and no one is personally motivated to do anything.
I don't think you read the description correctly. It appears to be a scale of "All for me" to "Equally shared among the group", which to me seems like it's a bit like the Prisoner's Dilemma. Share and you get the least if everyone else is selfish, so you might as well be selfish in the expectation that some if not all of the other participants will come to the same conclusion.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
That's not the ultimatum model. Under that ultimatum game you have an individual who is given a reward and must decide on how to split the reward. A second individual is then given the opportunity to refuse or accept the proposal. With a refusal, the reward is lost in its entirety. It's usually done with two players so a group based version is unfamiliar with me.
Here's maybe an example of how they would do it with multiple participants. They take five individuals and each individual will have the chance to
Comparing yourself to others never wins (Score:4, Insightful)
If you rate yourself based on other people's outcomes compared to your own (basing your self-esteem on parity or superiority), you will always be vulnerable to depression. The only thing worse than this is equating money with happiness and / or satisfaction in life.
Want to be happy? Rate yourself on your own progress in life. Make yourself a little bit better each day. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Re: (Score:1)
That's pretty amazing. You are so self absorbed that you didn't realise that your advice is "if you want to be happy be selfish" - which is precisely what the research says.
Neat!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, to paraphrase the old saying: comparing yourself to others only makes you egotistical and bitter, as there will always be someone worse than you, and there will always be someone better.
Re: (Score:1)
That's the flaw in this study. People that think they know what's best for everyone else are called 'prosocial' and those who don't consider themselves so self important are called 'selfish"
Re: (Score:2)
Hey..you gotta have SOME way of keeping score...
But I dunno....they say that money can't buy you happiness, but it sure can make misery a WHOLE lot easier to deal with and it usually last less time.
I think anyone that says money can't buy them love, never owned a puppy.
Re: (Score:2)
they say that money can't buy you happiness, but it sure can make misery a WHOLE lot easier to deal with and it usually last less time.
Money can't buy happiness, but it certainly can rent it for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd rather be unhappy and wealthy, than be unhappy and broke.
I would guess if wealthy, the duration of the unhappiness would be MUCH less than the duration if I was broke too.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, there is a "sweet spot" for wealth. If you're in the sweet spot, the money doesn't make you happy directly, but the money does resolve other problems that make you unhappy.
That sweet spot is the amount of wealth it takes for you to be able to live without having to spend mental/emotional energy to meet your physical needs. In other words, you don't have to worry about how you're going to eat, have shelter, etc.
Having an wealth above that sweet spot makes you increasingly unhappy. This is because to mai
Re: (Score:2)
"The only thing worse than this is equating money with happiness and / or satisfaction in life."
I've never understood this. If I ever got to a point where I could do whatever I wanted and never worry about paying another bill or forgoing any sort of activity, I'd be pretty happy. I've even seen studies that show ultra-wealthy people aren't happy and wonder how that could possibly be. These people can literally do anything at the drop of a hat...If they don't like their house, just buy another one. If they w
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Money buys happiness, to an extent. I think someone quantified it around $75,000 or so - beyond that it buys a lot less happiness.
It's a lot more obvious to say that lack of money causes unhappiness. We typically have a standard of living that we're okay with and beyond that we don't *need* to spend the money. There's always a house or car that costs twice as much, but it's no big deal. When you're poor you're often stuck with things that you're not okay with but you don't have a choice. And when you've cut down on the easy expenses it's sometimes very hard to cut down further. Even if you're not really poor things get dreary when you
Re: (Score:2)
If I ever got to a point where I could do whatever I wanted and never worry about paying another bill or forgoing any sort of activity, I'd be pretty happy.
Me too.
The counterintuitive thing is that having too much money means you have to worry about money, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Was religious belief a covered demographic? (Score:4, Interesting)
FTA: The differences in later depression indicators could not be explained away by demographics.
I wonder if they included religious belief/affiliation as a demographic because the game they played is based on economic (i.e. temporal) gains. If everyone was an atheist, this study would hit the nail on the head.
More importantly, IMO, FTA:
The implication is that people with depression (or likely to have depression) generally have a "greater empathic concern for others," in the words of Megan Speer and Mauricio Delgado, psychology researchers from Rutgers University, who penned a related commentary accompanying the study. People with depression just feel bad when others get a shit deal.
The takeaway is much more about generous people being upset about others getting screwed over than, "nice guys end up depressed more than selfish guys."
Re: (Score:2)
This would be difficult to measure. Some people are the Quite Religious who have a strong faith, but doesn't feel the need to be outward expressive of it, while others may have weak or no actual faith, But play the act with all the Vigor that seems necessary. Most of us are not honest with ourselves on what level our faith is. There are a lot of Atheists who actually deep down believe in a higher form, while there are a lot or religious people, who actually don't feel there is a God. They just don't admit
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Was religious belief a covered demographic? (Score:1)
Deity or Natural Selection, it doesn't matter. Something is trying to teach you a lesson and that lesson is: you are doing it wrong. Change it up because what you are doing now is not working.
Re: (Score:2)
Religion goes both ways on empathy. Some people are inspired by their religion to help others and not judge. Others use their religion as an excuse to not care about people. I don't know what the numbers and/or balance are, but the second group is sure noisier in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I should clarify what I meant with the comment about atheists. I wasn't making a moral judgment about religious people being more or less empathetic than atheists. I just meant that religious beliefs can play a role in why religious people act with compassion or empathy. Atheists ultimately live in a temporal world without religious fetters, while religious people have temporal and (classicly religious) spiritual concerns. "You'll go to hell if you don't treat your neighbor as thyself," can be a strong moti
Captain Obvious (Score:1)
disagree with assertions (Score:1)
... prosocial participants more likely refuse larger personal rewards in favor of larger rewards going to everybody else. Individualists take the offer that best benefits them, while prosocial people are more concerned with other people in the group.
I consider myself an individualist, meaning that the collective should not trample the rights of the individual. A person gets to enjoy individual rights: freedom of speech, association, sexual or religious preferences, etc, even if their government disagrees. I 100% disagree with the collective model of some countries, e.g, China, which tramples the individual in favor of a collective common choice.
I would still absolutely try to fairly distribute some unearned rewards among the group, even if my decisi
Re: (Score:2)
I will give you the easier version: You have rights, all other people also have rights. Other people can not take away your rights, but in return you can not take away their rights either. This thing called "other people" is commonly known as "collective", which is nothing more than a group of people like you. By agreeing to live in society, you become part of a collective while you still remain an individual, you're not turning into a "drone" to be ac
Note UNFAIR ... (Score:1)
So before everyone tells us selfishness is better - when you play a skewed and unfair game, it will make you unhappy. Whereas if you're selfish asshole, you're totally OK with playing an unfair game because you
Re: (Score:2)
Guilt (Score:1)
I'd be curious how peoples feelings of guilt measure against this spectrum. Does it correlate (higher likelihood of depression ~ more prosocial ~ more guilt)? I'm in therapy after a failed marriage, and I'm terribly co-dependent. I think in bad relationships (with bad people, that I have historically chosen), I can get guilted into depression. I am so guilty, and my narcissistic partner heaps on more shame which I just take. I end up depressed, and I feel amazing when I finally get the cahones to leave (it
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Frontal lobe... (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah - that's what the frontal lobe DOES, along with giving us the ability to imagine and plan. It largely suppresses the activation of other parts of the brain, so we can have culture and cooperation.
If we didn't hold back, otherwise 'smart' folks would just gather resources, then kill their 'opposing' cohorts. But they don't - because the same things that make them smart also let them imagine the consequences of using their ability to plan fully against others.
The depression that happens usually comes about in circumstances like this - where you're in some place you aren't allowed to leave, but care too much to use your power to harm others, even knowing that idiots will win from you holding back. So, you just stay in a loop, doing nothing with your relatively high potential.
Ryan Fenton
Re:Frontal lobe... (Score:4, Funny)
Until you realize that by eliminating those that are wasteful and hurtful to everyone else, you increase the general happiness of everyone and make it enjoyable for everyone.
That works until you get sent to jail for killing too many CEOs.
Re: (Score:2)
I image a project where DNA samples are taken from successful business executives and politicians -- under the guise of finding out what makes them such superior and wonderful specimens of humanity of course -- to find out if there's a genetic component to being such a selfish duplicitous asshole.
You could even test for the gene during pregnancy, like is done for Down Syndrome: "It's a boy! He'll either be a successful business tycoon (or maybe the President!) or end up in prison. Either way, he'll likely t
Re: (Score:2)
"Darling? Our boy will either be a CEO or a maniac."
"Darling? Why the tautology?"
And one way to combat depression is to help others (Score:4, Interesting)
I have come across anecdotes about a person's depression being due to them being wrapped up in their own concerns, but when they decided to help other people they discovered that they were also helping themselves because their depression started to lift. As an example of such an anecdote, the start of the semi-biographical movie "Patch Adams" (starring Robin Williams) concerns the main character who enters a mental health hospital due to feelings of depression after his father's death. While there, he strikes up friendships with other patients, tries to cheer them up, and sees that their and his mental health improves. As a result, he discharges himself from hospital and enters medical school so he can have a career helping other people.
So, apparently being unselfish can make you depressed, but it can also help you escape depression. I read the TFM but it is light on details and the main study is behind a paywall. My hypothesis is that feeling bad for the misfortunes of others and doing nothing to ease that misfortune might make you depressed, but feeling empathy for the misfortunes of others and actively trying to help them can give you a sense of purpose, which in turn can bring satisfaction and happiness. As a side effect, working to help others can also increase your social circle and sense of community, which, in turn, are likely to be beneficial for your mental health.
Just corroborating the old maxim... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Life is a comedy to those who think – and a tragedy to those who feel."
Re: (Score:2)
I think then it becomes an Irony.
There's something to this (Score:5, Interesting)
Realizing you can't fix things, for an altruistic individual, could be a huge contributor to depression. Caring about other people and coming to the realization that nothing you do can make any sort of lasting difference would be a huge crushing blow to a lot of people. On the flip side, selfish people tend to me more successful because they only look out for themselves, so maybe the reason they don't get depressed is because their brains don't have to deal with the disappointment. Take it to the extreme -- the psychopath executives of large companies don't succeed by helping their employees out...they succeed by squeezing them as much as they can and taking the profit that results for themselves. They're a special case because they're physically incapable of feeling compassion for others, and the worldly rewards they have access to as a result mute out almost any negative feelings.
For the altruistic among us, religion used to provide a buffer against this depression that occurs when finding you can't fix things or people. Religion lets you say, "it's in God's hands" and teachings of most religions tell people to spend their lives helping others regardless of how much impact they make. That's becoming less of a draw these days, and I don't know what average people are going to do about it. Maybe they'll get more selfish. If you don't believe you'll be rewarded after a lifetime of self-sacrifice, maybe the logical step is to try to get as much out of life while you can.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey...you only have ONE shot at life as far as we know, might as well enjoy it to the maximum of your capability, whatever that takes.
Wrong study linked in summary... (Score:3)
Link to TFA study... [nature.com]
So SJWs are merely self-medicating with politics. (Score:5, Interesting)
This completely explains the people I know whose lives revolve around hourly outrage against injustice on social media.
They have a personality flaw which causes them to over-empathize, which makes them prone to depression and emotional instability.
Waking up every day and logging on to deliberately find something to be outraged about temporarily resolves their depression by way of providing a strong countervailing emotion -- righteous anger. This also explains why President Trump is the best thing to happen to them and why our culture created him and why TV ratings for certain shows are up this year: his early morning tweets ARE the morning dose the over-empathizers need to push their depression back for a few hours. But of course, once you hop on the SJW cycle, once the outrage wears off you are faced with the sadness of how impotent you are to fix the thing you were insanely upset about, which sets up the depression cycle for the evening, which then requires late night fake-comedy/fake-news shows like Fallon and Kimmel and SNL which act as the evening dose to make people laugh and smooth it over and shake their heads at the world but feel the salve of shared humor.
Next morning the depression has returned and they wake up once again depressed a.f. and need to hop onto Facebook/twitter to get the morning dose.
It also fits with the logic of this brilliant treatise ( https://www.goodreads.com/book... [goodreads.com] ) on how most of our actions taken as a result of empathy are often really just symptomatic relief for their own anxiety induced by empathy. That is, empathizers do Stand UP! and Take Action! but their actions mostly just help THEMSELVES feel better, while not helping and often hurting the people who are the putative targets of the empathy.
Re: (Score:2)
The meek may inherit the Earth... (Score:2)
....but only after a lifetime of being shat upon by the rest of us.
Good Fences (Score:2)
What does this have to do with technology? (Score:2)
Unselfish? (Score:2)
Or just more concerned with what other people think about them?
No such thing as unselfish people (Score:2)
Everything we do is selfish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowJfUmlzeI
So making someone good or doing good is.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You need to sort your own shit out first. This also goes for losing cabin pressure in an airplane and running a robust phone or data network.
Re: (Score:1)
People with depression care too much about what others think about them. That is the problem. If you really care about others, you shouldn't care what they think as a condition.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the problem with people with depression is that they're depressed. Whether they care too much about what others think about them is a mostly separate issue.
Re: (Score:2)
It depresses me that unselfish people are depressed. I must do something to help them... this is so depressing.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's deeper than that, it's not that they are concerned about how others perceive them. Instead some people care about the happiness of other people more than their own. And the world being the unfair place it is, people who put others before their own needs are taken advantage of and treated unfairly.
As for depression, people are depressed because chemicals in their brain tell them to be.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As for depression, people are depressed because chemicals in their brain tell them to be.
Ok, but why are buttons depressed?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they need to use a different term for this..the given definition here is putting a bad slant on Individualism, which IMHO is one of the main things that made the US the success it has been to date.
Individualist means that one is self sufficient, able to take care of ones self in life and business...and doesn't need the govt or community really that much for the leading of his life and success (or failure).
That does not necessa
Re:Feels Good Man (Score:4, Insightful)
Individualist means that one is self sufficient, able to take care of ones self in life and business
It goes beyond being able to take care of ones self; it also means the person is motivated to take care of himself over taking care of the community at large. In other words, selfish.
Re:Feels Good Man (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't believe those two are necessarily mutually exclusive.
You can be self sufficient, you can be successful.
After that, you have a choice...you can help others.
You many not to choose to help others...is that selfish? Not really.
Selfish is taking that prevents others from having too, and then not sharing.
But if you make your way through life, not breaking any laws, etc....you become somewhat wealthy. You're not obligated to help others. It is nice, a VERY good thing, but you're not being selfish if you don't give. Because, those others...had opportunity to do what you did and better themselves due their own individual efforts.
Charity giving is a wonderful thing, but it is not an obligation of life. Not feeling a need to be giving and being selfish are not always the same thing.
Re:Feels Good Man (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't believe those two are necessarily mutually exclusive.
You can be self sufficient, you can be successful.
After that, you have a choice...you can help others.
You many not to choose to help others...is that selfish? Not really.
Selfish is taking that prevents others from having too, and then not sharing.
But if you make your way through life, not breaking any laws, etc....you become somewhat wealthy. You're not obligated to help others. It is nice, a VERY good thing, but you're not being selfish if you don't give. Because, those others...had opportunity to do what you did and better themselves due their own individual efforts.
Charity giving is a wonderful thing, but it is not an obligation of life. Not feeling a need to be giving and being selfish are not always the same thing.
A rich person didn't get where they are without society. By not giving back, well....that's pretty much the entire definition of rent-seeking.
A rich person who doesn't give back to their community is a rent-seeking selfish asshole. Massage your conscience all you want, but society gave you the opportunity, and not giving back to it is a dick move.
Re: (Score:2)
EVERYONE has society....so, that's pretty much a wash....and again, not an obligation reason.
You act like society is ONLY there for the ones that succeed. The ones that don't also have society, therefore it cancels out that as a reason for obligation to "give back".
Re:Feels Good Man (Score:5, Insightful)
Society only *works for* the ones that succeed. For them, it's an exploitable labor pool. That's how you gain superhuman wealth without superhuman productivity, by extracting wealth from the labor of others.
If you're poor on the other hand, society is mostly a collection of unaffordable high-end businesses and maybe some friends who will help you out a bit, if you're not surrounded by too many individualists.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Because, those others...had opportunity to do what you did and better themselves due their own individual efforts.
Heh, keep telling yourself that.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't believe those two are necessarily mutually exclusive.
You can be self sufficient, you can be successful.
After that, you have a choice...you can help others.
You many not to choose to help others...is that selfish? Not really.
Selfish is taking that prevents others from having too, and then not sharing.
But if you make your way through life, not breaking any laws, etc....you become somewhat wealthy. You're not obligated to help others. It is nice, a VERY good thing, but you're not being selfish if you don't give. Because, those others...had opportunity to do what you did and better themselves due their own individual efforts.
Charity giving is a wonderful thing, but it is not an obligation of life. Not feeling a need to be giving and being selfish are not always the same thing.
Sounds like you're arguing alignments with the DM in D&D.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The main reason for the USA being successful was getting out of the WW2 unharmed, unlike everybody else. That and the abundance of resources due to a large landmass. Believing that some kind of individualism is responsible is just as ridiculous as believing in a deity.
Re:Feels Good Man (Score:4, Interesting)
True. WW2 (and WW1 for that matter) only helped further increase its success.
The USA was successful because it had (as a whole) huge opportunities:
- A crapton of untapped natural resources, basically "all you want is here somewhere";
- Native population which was easy to get rid of through technological superiority (smallpox also helped);
- A steady influx of people from various nations who really-really-REALLY wanted to succeed (the fact that land was simply given away also helped);
- No neighboring countries who would pose a threat to its borders.
In a nutshell, the land of plenty and no competition. It would have been a miracle NOT to become successful.
Re: (Score:2)
That too.
Re: (Score:2)
...except that at the time, there was no USA.
Re: (Score:3)
How selfish of you to suggest they not use "individualist". Just kiddin'!
On another note, it's all the people trying to help others that destroy traffic in my neck of the woods. They are constantly coming to a complete halt to allow side roads to enter the main highway. They think they are helping the line of 3 guys trying to exit their neighborhood, but they fail to realize it is causing 250 cars behind them to have to jam on their brakes and come to a complete stop. Look in the rear view you unselfish sel
Re: (Score:2)
But you also have to consider the timeline in the US.
Back when we started, there really was NOT much in the way of public services.
The government largely was not responsible for: "sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health" as you listed.
A large bit of that was from individuals, responsible for their own, or paying for the services from private individuals (town Dr. f
Re: (Score:2)
Chiming in here. I think that individualism and collectivism are best represented by their adherents in times of low economic pressure and relative safety. Remove even the appearance of safety and comfort and many people will swing violently toward the other axis of operation.
Gotta love humans. Inconsistency is the only consistent thing about them.
Re:I hear that (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The deed is its own reward only so many times. It doesn't go like that forever. Five years, a decade, two decades down the line you realize everyone you helped is now well-off (helped by your deeds) and you're still nowhere better, and the deed paying itself starts losing sense. Basically you figure out you're a sucker.
From this point of view, "truly selfless" equals "abused" - and yes, it's unfair and you should stop being a sucker, erm I mean "truly selfless".
Re: (Score:3)
I'm a helpful person my nature, but recently I've started to wonder if it's worth it
Personally, that's not an equation that makes emotional sense to me. The problem is that if I'm doing better than the people around me (by whatever definition of "better"), then not doing what I can to help others out makes me feel like a selfish shit.
Whether or not others appreciate it doesn't factor in at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Why?
I mean, if you have the means, it is very nice to help others out. But it isn't a necessity.
There's nothing that obligates you to be your brother's keeper, unless it was your fault that harmed them.
But outside of that....why in the world would this ever occur to you to think that way?
Why do you feel guilt if you're w
Re:I hear that (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Because I genuinely care about the well-being of my fellow man.
Why do you feel guilt if you're winning the race, so to speak?
I'm not engaging in a race, so there's no "winning" or "losing". Ignoring that, I'm not motivated by guilt for having success -- why in the world would that make anyone feel guilty? -- I'm motivated by wanting everyone to be better off. If I am in a position to further that goal, it would be weird not to do it.
I can come up with a lot of logical, selfish reasons why this is a good thing to want (the better off everyone else is, the better off I am, after all), but the reality is much more basic (and still selfish): it makes me happy to see others doing well, and it makes me unhappy to see others not doing well.
Re: (Score:2)
The best way to make everybody else better off is to make yourself better off. This isn't a zero sum game - if you make a dollar it doesn't mean someone else didn't make a dollar. When you thrive you use your money to buy services from other people, helping them make a living. There's no shame in that.
Re:I hear that (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, this isn't a zero-sum game (to an extent -- the nature of our economic system is such that it requires there to be losers), and there's certainly no shame in making yourself better off.
But I take issue with the notion that making yourself better off is the best way to make others better off. It is important to take care of yourself -- it's hard to lift other people up if you're flat on the floor -- but simply being better off, all by itself, is not helping your fellow man. You actually have to, you know, do things that help.
Re: (Score:2)
...it makes me happy to see others doing well, and it makes me unhappy to see others not doing well.
Which is likely because you see others as actual people (like yourself, but distinct from yourself) instead of resources to be exploited. This doesn't seem to be a universal ability and the perspective of those without it is fairly alien to those who have it (and vice versa, I assume). What's pathetic is that our society rewards, and even seems to revere, such people.
Re: (Score:2)
I wound up deciding that I make my own decisions and live with the consequences. I seem to be happier that way. So, if I do something to help another, and it does help another, I've gotten what I wanted. Thanks is a pleasant social gesture, but not essential. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "gets thrown back in my face".