[reaperman]

> “…which has the potential to do as much harm as good.”

I find this is one of the more difficult things for people to learn to fully integrate into their psyche. Many people never learn to truly care about this and everything it means. They go on forever primarily caring about what’s good for them personally.

[paulcole]

Strong disagree. Put yourself first nearly 100% of the time. Nobody cares about you so don’t think others are doing anything but prioritizing themselves.

I mean look at the world. Essentially everybody puts themselves first and it’s clear as day. Don’t trick yourself into being the sap doing things for the greater good.

And who cares if there’s equal potential for harm and good? The harm might be less than we imagine and the good might be better than we think it could be. “This might be bad” is a terrible reason to not do something. Nearly everything might be bad!

People are pretty resilient. They can generally deal with you being selfish.

[spencerflem]

That's grim. Don't light yourself on fire to keep others warm or nothing, but in my experience most people are hoping to make the world better where they can.

This sort of hustle culture belief is definitely present in the world, especially among finance and us techie types, but there's tons of examples of people Not acting like this. Teachers don't do it for the pay, etc. There's a reason meaningful jobs tend to pay less, and its because so many people want to do useful helpful things that badly.

Anyways point is, that I want to explicitly condemn this type of thinking. Yeah don't let fear of doing the wrong thing paralyze you but also think through the consequences

[paulcole]

> most people are hoping to make the world better where they can.

Are they actually making the world better or just hoping they can?

Everybody in the developed world, if they wanted to make the world better, would live drastically differently because of their impact on the environment/climate change.

But it’s more fun to just say that we’re hoping to make the world better so we don’t have to acknowledge how selfish we actually are.

I’m not talking about hustle culture here. I’m talking about the selfishness we all partake in and do our best to ignore.

[bruce511]

I agree that most (privileged) people behave selfishly. You don't have to look far to see that. That doesn't make it good.

Which is why advice to be explicitly selfish is jarring. We don't need advice yo do that, we excel at it naturally.

There are however great rewards to be had from being unselfish. We can see that around us too. Being at least aware of our proclivities is the first step in discovering the benefits of countering them.

[paulcole]

If people are naturally selfish and they’re giving you advice to not be selfish, why aren’t they taking their own advice? And why should you take theirs?

It’s like a burglar telling you it’s a good idea to leave your doors unlocked.

[bruce511]

Lots of people act, at least partially, in unselfish ways.

Selfishness is not a binary characteristic. There are degrees of selfishness - and spheres of selfishness.

Just because something is in our nature, it does not mean we have to behave that way all the time. Most people are neither purely selfish, nor purely unselfish.

To answer your question though, since selfishness exists on a scale, your assumption that people offering advice are not also practicing it is, at best, a conclusion without data.

[softsound]

Sometimes the best one can do is try. It's worse to give up.

And are you a good judge on if it's better? Better can be very complicated, it could be better in part and worse in another but it's not wrong to try... (Unless well it really becomes really corrupted) We as people tend to overcorrect and so life will always swing from one end of a spectrum to another.

I think people do want to do good in the world they just get overwhelmed, or think it's impossible, or discredit the small good things they do.

Sometimes people think if you don't do a major good thing all the small things don't add up - honestly though it's often better to do smaller good long term things then a major non lasting one.

Besides the world is getting greener, healthier and happier all the time if you look in the right places. You will always find what you ask for, so look for good and you will find it. I follow so many YouTube channels showing how much the environment is improving and how such small things really get better. I try to sponsor them when I can and I hope to do more in the future too.

I also personally grow local fruit trees and various plants in my backyard to help local native species and while minor I am doing something even if small.

[paulcole]

> I follow so many YouTube channels showing how much the environment is improving and how such small things really get better. I try to sponsor them when I can and I hope to do more in the future too.

I take back everything I said about people being selfish.

Thank you for your service.

[zero-sharp]

This is one of the worst things I've read on here. I hope it's a parody and that I'm just too stupid to understand it.

[teapot7]

That's awful.