From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Jan 24 2002 - 18:42:35 MST
At 07:18 PM 1/24/02 -0500, Jerry Mitchell wrote:
>Why is altruism even a virtue?
>What have others done to garner the results of my efforts?
[Rand blah blah]
Jerry, did your parents apply this creepy calculus to their expenditures
when you were an infant?
How is it that you are asking these questions in a common human language?
Invented it yourself entirely as `the results of your efforts'? Bought it
off the shelf after you earned your first few hundred dollars?
If you must, think `pay forward'. (I'm not citing the movie, which I
haven't seen, but the idea's the same.) Think of how four one dimensional
sticks joined correctly make a 3D tetrahedron, even if only one of the
sticks is smart enough or generous enough or empathic enough to invite the
other three along.
Damien Broderick
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