[ExI] People are Genuine Altruists, Sociopaths, or Confused/Moody

[Harvey Newstrom]

"Lee Corbin" <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote,
> This is extremely principled of you. I not only admire that, but I emulate 
> it.
> However, you beg the question I'm asking: to wit, why should one even
> be principled?

I'm not even sure I understand the label, since you came up with it and not 
me.  But if you are asking why I keep doing the same things over and over as 
if there were a guiding principle, it is because I am older now and more 
experienced.  I have done a lot of things in a lot of different ways.  I 
have learned that some ways work better than others.  After a while, I tend 
to keep trying the ways that work best, and avoiding the ones that don't 
work well.

> I am afraid that you also either consciously or unconsciously
> mixing in a Kantian imperative "do as you would have everyone else do".
> But the fact of the matter is that you could change your behavior, become
> utterly unprincipled (in cases only where you aren't caught, of course), 
> and it would change no one else's behavior!

Nope, I don't believe in this Kantian imperative.  Firstly, I am not 
convinced that the best actions for one person are always the best actions 
for everyone.  Second, as you point out, it won't change the behavior of 
others.  Thirdly, I don't base my own actions on others, but rather on 
myself.

> There can be many people, Harvey, who would also believe as you do
> of the necessity of the free market and exchange of money to progress
> and prosperity, and they would never "reject the whole concept of a
> free-market system" either---it's just that such an individual would leave
> it to the rest of us "suckers" to carry on, while he or she violates every
> principle that can be gotten away with.

This only appears true because both are described by the term "free market". 
My concept of a "free market" is information based, where the consumer makes 
informed choices, and the best products sell the most, become the most 
efficiently produced, and make the most profit for the seller.  The 
cheater's "free market" is merely free from regulations or honesty, where 
they can produce fraudulent products, take money for nothing, and swindle 
people.  Thus, my market consists of real products and goods exchange, 
whereas the cheater's market consists of fraudulent products and outright 
thievery.  These two "free markets" are not the same thing at all, and there 
is very little belief system in common.

In fact, I would argue that the cheater's market exists as a parsital leech 
on the honest market, and could not exist without the honest market around 
it acting differently than the cheaters.actually function without the honest 
market around it.  Thus, the cheaters don't really want the same market that 
I do.  They want to hide their market within my market.  Their market 
doesn't really produce anything, and can only receive value from my market. 
So these two "markets" are not the same "free market" at all.

>> Even if I thought I could steal them more efficiently than buying them, 
>> there would be less opportunities to do so in an environment
>> where merchants regularly got shortchanged.
>
> Yes, but I'm saying that you could steal without causing everyone
> else to do so, and so hurt our progress and prosperity only
> infinitesimally and maximizing your own personal gain.

Let me be really blunt here.  I have already gotten away with stealing money 
from banks undetected.... as part of my security testing.  Then I give it 
back and they pay me big bucks for having done it.  Then they pay me big 
bucks to help them fix it.  Then other banks pay me big bucks for the same 
fix it for them.  And the same work can be reused for money over and over 
with lots of happy clients.

Could I get more money by keeping the money and not working so hard?  Not 
really.  I'd have to hide the money from the IRS and family and friends.  I 
couldn't go back to the bank every year for repeat business.  They'd tell 
their banker friends to increase security to keep me from getting their 
money too, rather than giving me job referals to get their money too.  I'd 
have to keep finding new targets rather than getting repeat business all the 
time.  I'd have to maintain a complete set of secret bank accounts, 
duplicate books, secret dealings to use my money.  Even purchasing property 
and vehicles becomes very complicated when the government can't track where 
the money came from.  I would have to launder money, work with big 
criminals, and they would all want their cut.  All in all, the illegal jobs 
incurr magnatudes more risk and effort than the legal ones.  It really is 
more lucrative to do a few $100K contracts than to steal a million dollars.

There is another problem with this false dichotomy.  One has to build up the 
technical skill to pull it off.  As one builds up these skills, one legally 
earns more and more money.  The more money one earns, the less lucrative the 
illegal options are in comparison.  If a person is enough of a loser to 
admit that they can't come up with a million dollar idea or build a millon 
dollar business, why would they think they could architect a million dollar 
heist?  Or if they really put in the effort to garner the necessary skills 
to achieve this, they probably have already been making six figures for many 
years and can make more in the future.  The ease of crime is overestimated, 
while the impossibility of making a cool legal million are underestimated.

>>> I see no necessary self-interest component to being fair to others, even
>>> though in most situations indeed there is. Surely the answer is at least
>>> in part genuine altruism.
>>
>> It sounds like you understand my answer, but you don't believe it.  Trust 
>> me, I don't care to give away my money for free to strangers I will never 
>> see again.
>
> Actually so? You wouldn't leave a tip in a restaurant you were
> certain never to visit again? I had inferred from the preceding
> that you would.

Yes, but this is not giving my money away for free.  This is a fair purchase 
of services.  I would only pay this tip after I have received good services 
in advance.  I wouldn't stiff a server on a tip any more than I would skip 
out on the bill itself or rob the cash register on my way out.  I really 
don't see this as being the same as throwing away money.  I just don't feel 
tempted to cheat people for a few measly dollars.

> I'll refrain in this thread from now on from using the terms, since I
> know far too well the futility of definitions. But I believe that I did
> use "genuine altruism" throughout in a consistent manner. So what
> we are talking about is *behavior that in no way ever conveys
> a material reward to one*.

I don't mind the terms, but you have to realise that I might now use them in 
the same way.  As I say, I don't consider tipping to be "genuine altruism" 
done just for the benefit of the server.  I do it to purchase services for 
*me*.  So I don't see myself as this altruist you want to argue against.

--
Harvey Newstrom <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
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