[raganwald]

Sorry, that's YOUR definition, and good for you that you consider altruism more meaningful than courage. But yours is not the only definition, as I'm sure you are perfectly aware.

Now as to Mr. Parsons, don't be suckered into equating his killing an elephant with the question of whether elephants should be culled. Culling an elephant involves game wardens. What he did was murder tourism, big difference.

[jemfinch]

My definition? If your definition of "meaningful" doesn't take into account an act's impact on the external world, I don't know what to say; we probably have very little to discuss. I have no interest in arguing against what effectively amounts to solipsism.

"Murder" is the intentional killing of humans. Hunting elephants, licitly or otherwise, is not and never can be "murder tourism". But since you seem intent in this discussion on using words with meanings other than their commonly accepted ones, perhaps we should go our separate ways now.

[raganwald]

None of my words said or implied that acts that help other people are not meaningful. I'm a father, I consider parenthood meaningful. I also consider climbing Mt. Everest meaningful even though I have no interest in trying it. The two are not exclusive in my mind.

My point was and is that testing one's courage is part of the meaning for climbimng Mt. Everest, as are many other things such as testing one's discipline to and sacrifice. I think these things are meaningful even when if and when they are not altruistic. That does not mean that digging a well or planting a tree or raising a child is not meaningful, they are also meaningful for different reasons.

Ok, killing an elephant that would have been culled anyways is not murder. Fine. Buit still, Bob parsons paid for the right to be the one that killed th elephant. The elephant would have been shot any ways, it's not like the Africans were unable to shoot it and needed Bob's help. The man paid for the right to kill something. Whatever word you apply, the fact remains that he killed a living thing for pleasure and then boasted of it on the Internet.