Psychopathy to Altruism: Neurobiology of the Selfish–Selfless Spectrum | Hacker News Reader

Psychopathy to Altruism: Neurobiology of the Selfish–Selfless Spectrum

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

91 pointslainon27 comments

One also has to factor in second dimension which is behavior towards in-group and out-groups.

I understand that as we become more multi-cultural, there is a decrease in the percieved kinship between city dwellers and thus less alturistic behavior.

Basically, in diverse cities people are more likely to be assholes to each other.

> Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher level of public altruism. For example, the degree of ethnic homogeneity correlates with the government's share of gross domestic product as well as the average wealth of citizens. Case studies of the United States, Africa and South-East Asia find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to develop public infrastructure. Moscow beggars receive more gifts from fellow ethnics than from other ethnies [sic]. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than do the more homogeneous cities.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiculturalism

Do wonder if in/out and altruism/psychopathy overlap.

Meaning that an altruist has a wider sense of in-group, while a psychopath has a much narrower one.

I guess this however opens up the possibility that one can "learn" to be a psychopath by narrowing ones in-group.

That'd mean most, if not all, ancient people were psychopaths.

Also, many people are not altruistic even to their in-group.

I understand that as we become more multi-cultural, there is a decrease in the percieved kinship between city dwellers and thus less alturistic behavior.

Maybe more multi-ethnic, but I'm not sure about multi-cultural. If anything, at least we globally share a baseline of culture because of the internet and I only see that increasing...hopefully.

Hopefully not. Monocultural world would be a very boring place. We need true cultural diversity on planet earth. Not this mono-culture-but-multiple-colors-and-dongles bullshit.

Yes, wars, fueled by cultural differences are not great, but god save us from boredom.

If your goal is to have no wars, plenty of scum would gladly take the wheel and force their culture upon you.

He said a baseline of culture. Not global monoculture standard

What if baseline happens to be China and Russia style? I'd rather not rely on baselines.

Important cultural differences (not festivities and language but religion and morality and ethics) means that people of a culture can not enjoy or even tolerate another culture.

As European, I can only hope the world will adapt a secular vegan European-like culture and not e.g. the war loving US culture with lying government officials (even worse than some European nations) or the Chinese culture (e.g. Social Credits and no freedom of speech) or the work culture of South Korea and Japan or a Muslim/Sharia culture or a culture of genital mutilation of boys and girls or a culture of throwing acid in the faces of people or a caste system like in India.

Why would you have to be able to enjoy another culture? As long as the cultures live apart and don't bother each other, it's good enough.

Just like being vegan. As long as I don't force you to eat meat and you let me enjoy a stake with cheese, all is good. But once we try to establish baseline (either all-vegan or mandatory-meat), all goes down the shitter...

Multiple cultures are not like multiple dishes for a meal.

There are important and often deadly conflicts (e.g. coercion, mutilation, poverty, war) related to cultural differences and (IMO bad) cultures themselves.

I am in favor of a prohibition of cheap animal products because of the economic, ethical, ecological and medical problems related to animal products.

I am in favor of a limitation or prohibition of certain cultures. E.g. the Islamic veil or family customs that lead to psychological and physical harm or forced marriages.

My point is that looking for common baseline for everybody even for a meal leads to conflicts. While coexisting at peaceful terms is less conflicts.

On top of that, even if we'd come up with a common baseline, I'm sure people would invent differences in no time. Give it some time and somebody in vegan culture may realise that animals are edible and damn tasty.

Prohibition of cheap, all-shortcuts-taken, foods is not vegan issue. Veggies, animal-related foods and meat should be responsibly made and focus on quality (as in nutrition and taste, not only nice looking) rather than price alone.

You'd have to redo Islamic culture from the ground up and forcefully reeducate several generations of people. And it's questionable wether it'd be a success. Soviets and Nazis did try to build the new perfect man. Neither approach was pretty. Let's not go down that path again. Yes, some people may seem backwards (as we do for them). But hey, live and let them live. As long as neither of us bother each other and live in their own countries ruled as each of us see fit.

I hope that the internet and a world-government will bring a cultural and legal baseline that guarantees peace and the Human Rights worldwide.

http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Unfortunately not even European countries respect the human rights with regard to poverty (economic, social and cultural rights) and freedom of expression (civil and political rights) and international law regarding warfare (e.g. Libya, Yugoslavia,...):

http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/

And even Human Rights (tm) is interpreted differently :) Especially given how much of a failure UN is.

Also, world-government formation would be a blood shed not seen before. On top of that, all similar formations so far couldn't hold their shit together. USSR, British empire, Roman empire.. EU is struggling too. Even China has tumultuous history and they'd have issues the moment iron grip is loosened. USA is not exactly without internal rivalries either.

Why go through hassle of forming such entity if it will fail sooner or later?

I seriously wonder if there's a gradient of altruism based on resemblance.

The selfish–selfless spectrum is valuable for technical leaders to improve teamwork, in my experience.

We call this social value orientation (SVO) which involves an individual’s natural preference with respect to the allocation of resources.

During technical leadership this comes up with e.g. feature prioritization, competitive/collaborative agile planning, and how to create "nudges" to increase team success.

https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_value_orientat...

Very interesting. My only criticism? Perhaps too much of a focus on procedural justice.

Peter Thiel has a great talk on how one of the biggest problems in western societies is that we have moved away from having a determinate view of the future, to an indeterminate one. This has been driven in big part on the idea that process matter more than substance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZM_JmZdqCw

E.g. Lawyers are more concerned with society having a fair process or procedure for doing things, than its advancement.

But the future is undeterministic? Its a tree with lots of branches- of which one of those with variations will become reality.

To assume one knows the exact path, might be a helpfull tool for a small group working towards a goal, but from the eagle perspective, that is what all these companies are. Exploring branches of a tree of propabilites.

Thiel basically argues for not having his view as a large scale investor. But that is bogus, if you want to be a succesfull CEO you might have to pivot, pivoting essentially means giving up your branch- and navigate to another branch of the scenario tree, whos succes-propability is closely related to your tech. Which is why you should think about what is possible with the stuff you develop, not about one product.

This of course is demoralizing for the individual coder. If you write code that is product-bound, that code could go to the bin at any second. That is why they usually do not get told. At some level- there is only one product, on mission, one group against all others.

But at project management level, one should realize there might even within the same companys, several projects clustering around the same core-tech, trying to use what is possible for diffrent approaches.

At least similar to being diverted from a focus on primary reinforcement, to a focus on sources of secondary reinforcement.

"E.g. Lawyers are more concerned with society having a fair process or procedure for doing things, than its advancement."

And I allways thought most lawyers are more concerned with winning their case and making money than "fair process". I know exceptions though, but heard and read horrible things about the average.

It's quite annoying to see emotion tied in with altruism, for they are largely orthogonal concerns.

Emotion only leads to altruistic behavior in a small set of circumstances that we have been programmed to react to. And just following your emotions often makes things worse, so if you care about helping people it should be avoided.

Being an unemotional altruistic, one who does it for rational reasons, it more reliable and scalable.

"And just following your emotions often makes things worse, so if you care about helping people it should be avoided."

Sources or arguments?

Because I see things different. If I don't feel like helping, I don't. I made the experience if I force myself to it, it often leads to a worse outcome. (Like breaking things)

Fun fact: Hitler felt that Antisemitism is wrong, but at some point he choose his rational over his feelings and became what he became. Because his rational reasons were that the jews were clearly poison to the good aryan people so to help them, he had to fight the enemy. ("literally stated somewhere in Mein Kampf")

... but feelings and emotions and rational and instinct and intuition often gets mixed up and I doubt you clearly seperate it.

I don't understand your personal story - if your helping is likely to break things, then it's not rational to keep doing it.

Charities are a good example - lots of people donate to charities to feel good, regardless of the effectiveness of that donation. Most of that money is wasted, for example on fundraising. What sense does it make to donate to charities that spend more on fundraising?

But if your goal is altruistic, instead of selfish, you should donate to charities that give the best results.

"I don't understand your personal story - if your helping is likely to break things, then it's not rational to keep doing it."

Yes you did not understand. The keywords were "feeling like it".

Meaning I only help if I feel like it - then it is effective. Otherwise not. Very simple.

So you just aren't altruistic then. As I said, they are orthogonal concerns.

This debate seems over the top. It’s pretty simple. A person who has a strong sense of self (“selfish”) is the one that can truly empathize. Empathy drives true selflessness because u can connect with another person and feel their needs transparently. Once you feel someone’s needs transparently it’s pretty hard to get not take care of those needs (to the empathizers best ability).

If we tap into that empathy (which I believe everyone living on planet earth has a strong dose of) imagine how much better our world would be.

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