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Comment by ty6853 | Hacker News Reader

I find discussions of selfishness interesting in the context of a biological imperative.

Raising kids mostly feels to me like I have a horrible heroin addiction. Loads of cash and time, reduced access to jobs, increased risk of intrusion by authorities and I struggle to see any personal benefit but lots of personal losses. Nonetheless my brain has tricked me somehow into it, at some basic biological level, and it seems this trickery at least at the population level is a necessary condition of life to the point free will is a total joke to consider as part of the equation.

At an individual maybe there is some selfish choice but at a population level having a kid is about the biological equivalent of taking a shit -- people don't take a shit because they are selfish they do it because it is biologically required and humans simply evolved to match this requirement.

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This sounds like the free will argument. we're just complex receptors to stimuli, we don't choose anything, we receive inputs and react accordingly. "it's just biology"

in this sense there's no discussion on why humans chooses kids or heroin, or taking a shit. The answer is "they don't"

so this isn't about kids. you've made up your mind about all reality.

>in this sense there's no discussion on why humans chooses kids or heroin, or taking a shit. The answer is "they don't"

This is false equivalence, taking heroin isn't a biologicals imperative, reproduction is obligatory to life.

My thesis is humans have no real choice at a population level not to reproduce, your fallaciously equate that to a reductionist view on everything else including things not obligatory to life.

The way I understand your position is "we're wired to do/choose X"

The big discussion is why have kids. And your position then is we're wired to, just like taking a dump.

It's not a good argument in my mind because the position voids every decision. There are no decisions. No free will. We can discuss that, i suppose.

edit: saw your update. I don't know I think it tracks. Asking why does someone do something implies a choice, to argue it's not a choice is a different argument. A good one even, but it's different.

My discussion was this:

>I find discussions of selfishness interesting in the context of a biological imperative.

Why is an interesting discussion, but not identical here. The charge I was responding to was specifically addressing selfishness.

I am totally open to the idea one can act selfishly both under the pretext that there is or isn't free will, which moots any attempt you're making here to shoehorn the argument into that.

ok then "selfishness" is now the unanswerable topic. it's too complex. Classic "there is no altruism". All acts are selfish if one derives any benefit from them. are there acts that people do by choice that give them no benefit?

i don't think this is reductionist btw. Philosophy tends to make people eye-roll. These are unanswerable questions! Discussion is the fun part.

I would break this into a few categories

Selfish non-choice. Ex: The fetus takes nourishment from the mother, even in the case she would rather abort and doesn't consent to the continued hosting of the fetus.

Selfish choice: Ex: I must take a dump, but the place I choose to take a shit is on my bosse's chair because I don't like that his is better than mine.

Non-selfish choice: Fireman is driving home after his shift ended, saves baby from fire.

Non-selfish non-choice: Woman involuntarily starts screaming after witnessing an unrelated car drive into a lake. Passers-by hear the scream and alert emergency services.

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