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Any functional family or military unit. Many non-profits and charities. A lot of successful startups. Costco, there's a reason their employees tend to stick

Any functional family or military unit. Many non-profits and charities. A lot of successful startups. Costco, there's a reason their employees tend to stick around. Self-sacrifice doesn't mean you get zero reward or that reward is evenly distributed, it means everyone gives of themselves to improve the whole, whatever that is in context. You're part of the whole, so regardless of your position in it you benefit indirectly. The converse is a parasitic/extractive relationship, where your objective is to consume/destroy as much of the whole as possible to improve your own perceived standing relative to others. See Sears, most private equity firms, Kanye's recent antics, and arguably some of what Elon's doing with Twitter. At a large-scale, democracies work because they incentivize/force self-centered assholes to act in self-sacrificing manners in order to satisfy their greed.

WalterBright 4y ago
The military has never been known for efficiency. Non-profits and charities are well known for very little of the donations actually go to help people. > A lot of successful startups None are staffed by people deliberately working at a loss. Self-sacrifice is about deliberately working for a below-market salary for the benefit of others. Family units are selfishly motivated - the propagation of their genes.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Sounds like you're defining "works" as whatever's convenient to your argument. The military can and will kick your ass, it doesn't need to be efficient to do that. The Gates foundation is well known for making progress on eradicating polio, among other measures. If we're defining self-sacrifice as deliberately working for a below-market salary for the benefit of others, you just defined pretty much every high-skill government employee. Every FBI agent, every general, every agency staffer could almost certainly make more in the private sector. Many of them stay out of a sense of duty and service, and because they want their work to be meaningful. I don't know how you don't say startups aren't staffed by people deliberately working at a loss. Almost by default startups pay less in salary with the vague promise of outsized gains on company stock when it goes public. Startups are also often started by idealists who want to try and put a vision out there into the world, and are willing to make giant sacrifice to achieve that vision. Usually that vision involves improving other peoples' lives in some way "making the world a better place" and all that. If you want to drill down deep enough any action that produces emotional reward is selfishly motivated, by that logic the only selfless actions are the ones that make us miserable without any hope of a reward, which is a very useless way to define selflessness as it excludes nearly all human activity.

WalterBright 4y ago

The military has never been known for efficiency. Non-profits and charities are well known for very little of the donations actually go to help people. > A lot of successful startups None are staffed by people deliberately working at a loss. Self-sacrifice is about deliberately working for a below-market salary for the benefit of others. Family units are selfishly motivated - the propagation of their genes.

scottLobster 4y ago
Sounds like you're defining "works" as whatever's convenient to your argument. The military can and will kick your ass, it doesn't need to be efficient to do that. The Gates foundation is well known for making progress on eradicating polio, among other measures. If we're defining self-sacrifice as deliberately working for a below-market salary for the benefit of others, you just defined pretty much every high-skill government employee. Every FBI agent, every general, every agency staffer could almost certainly make more in the private sector. Many of them stay out of a sense of duty and service, and because they want their work to be meaningful. I don't know how you don't say startups aren't staffed by people deliberately working at a loss. Almost by default startups pay less in salary with the vague promise of outsized gains on company stock when it goes public. Startups are also often started by idealists who want to try and put a vision out there into the world, and are willing to make giant sacrifice to achieve that vision. Usually that vision involves improving other peoples' lives in some way "making the world a better place" and all that. If you want to drill down deep enough any action that produces emotional reward is selfishly motivated, by that logic the only selfless actions are the ones that make us miserable without any hope of a reward, which is a very useless way to define selflessness as it excludes nearly all human activity.