Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!quiche!utility From: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) Newsgroups: alt.activism Subject: Re: Akwesasne Notes -- Basic Call to Consciousness 1977 Message-ID: <2010@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> Date: 19 Jan 90 19:39:25 GMT References: <3096@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> <1257@milton.acs.washington.edu> <503@smcnet.UUCP> <4602@druwy.ATT.COM> <1963@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> <1989@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> Reply-To: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Lines: 30 In article nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu writes: >The problem that I have with greed is simply this: Greed is self-interest >at the expense of others. If you saw a ten dollar bill lying on the sidewalk, >would you pick it up? A greedy person would pick it up. A self-interested >person would leave it there, realizing that it doesn't belong to them, >that someone will be looking for it, and sooner or later they'll lose >something that they will want someone else to leave there. To the extent that greed is "short-sighted" self-interest, I am against it. However the obvious context of the word in the given article was greed as pure self-interest, or an assumption (maybe more accurately) that ALL egoists are "greedy". By the way, your reasoning for a self-interested individual is BADLY flawed. It is an axiom that you cannot act in method X and expect others to do so just because you did. The dollar bill is pretty close to a prisoner's dilemna game -- assuming there is no penalty for picking up the bill: 1) everyone is better off if no one picks up dropped items that aren't theirs 2) each individual will always find it profitable to do so if there is no penalty for doing so, REGARDLESS of how many people would do the same or not (standard n-person prisoner's dilemna situation). So a person who is self-interested will likely work to have laws made/enforced about taking others property -- THAT would be in their interest, but given the absence of such laws (and given its worth BOTHERing to stoop to pick up that $10 bill) and given that there is no implicit penalty (e.g. if the person was with a business associate they would be unwise to convey a negative impression) the person should pick it up. And, as for greed as pursuing self-interest to the extent of harming others, I think that this is completely natural and correct. Every time I decide not to smoke a cigarette I am harming the members of the tobacco industry (I am just being greedy and putting myself first). Ron