[ExI] [tt] Identity thread again

[William Flynn Wallace]

I consider myself an evolutionary psychologist, much like Stephen Pinker -
my guru, I suppose.

I do not doubt that if I were to be continually punished for good deeds I
would stop them.  However, this result is likely to be rare - very rare.

I was just making the point that rewards do not necessarily have to come
from others.  The martyr, in fact, is a real creature, as has been
demonstrated many times in history, and has rejected the rewards offered by
others.  We internalize through identification processes the good and the
bad we see in others, though we change those to fit into our own system of
morality.  And some of what we call our conscience is inherited.  I wish I
could live to understand more of that, as future geneticists figure it out.

How all this fits into theories of altruism is something I am not going to
get into, lacking both the background and the interest.

As I understand it, true communism has never been practiced anywhere, and
where it has been tried, it failed miserably, victim to human selfishness.

bill w
​​


Tara Maya
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> On Mar 24, 2015, at 11:28 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> ​To make such self-sacrifice for a stranger, humans must expect to receive
> compensation (another form of reciprocity), like payment and honors to
> soldiers, that will benefit themselves or their family.  Tara
>
> I completely disagree with this. I help people with no expectation of
> reward from them or their family, friends, government, or anything.  I just
> helped an immigrant family get their car started and got nothing in return
> - not even thanks.  But I know I did the right thing.
>
> For those of you who believe in an identity, this reinforced my belief
> that I am a helping person.  There any many forms of reward/reinforcement
> for our behaviors and self-reinforcement is one of the most powerful.
>
> How this fits in with people's ideas of evolutionary theory I neither know
> nor care.
>
> Bill W
>
> I​
>
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