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Selfish

Oct 20, 20213 min read

To be able to provide care, you need to take care of yourself

Selfcare → more altruism → create a better environment for self → betterment of the self

Is there a difference between genuine altruism vs egoistic altruism?

Reverse machiavellianism

  • machiavellian is doing the good thing for a selfish ends
  • opposite would be you do the selfish thing for a good ends

General thoughts:

  1. In scarce situations - try to align yourself with people’s selfish reasons to get them to do things. It’s ok to be selfish in scarce situations if it enables you to better help others in the future (hill exploration analogy, its ok to be selfish if it means we can reach a better local max)
  2. When possible, try to make situations of abundance for yourself and others

Is there a label for someone who prioritizes themselves so that they can best help others in the long term?

I think I’m realizing that I am selfish in the sense that I will only help others if it is something I will enjoy doing and obviously that depends on who it is I’m helping, what I’m doing, my state of self, etc.

The catch is that I just really enjoy helping others in pretty much all situations (with a few exceptions, like when my own personal well-being is in jeopardy or the person is just an asshole)

“We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic. But what it really is is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs?” Source

See also: pain

In Tech

Source: the technofuturist’s oath by Priya

If we don’t make our numbers, we won’t get the next round of funding. And without that funding, we won’t ever fulfill on our positive-sum, idealistic mission that will benefit everyone. is a very common thing to hear people working at startups scrounging at money say.

Does competition always kill positive sum worlds?

Intelligently Selfish

Source: How to be Intelligently Selfish — Dalai Lama

His Holiness skillfully redefines selfishness to mean the healthy pursuit of what’s best for yourself: what would bring you genuine happiness — caring about others.

Porousness of the self

Selfishness depends on what the definition of the self is. Expansions on the concept of ‘self’:

Nice vs Kind

From Joice

Being nice is doing something you think will people happy. Being kind is doing something because you want to do it for them. The key is agency and boundary of self :))

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