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Message: <blockquote data-quote="zabom" data-source="post: 6791956" data-attributes="member: 6807118">It is difficult to read a thread such as this and not inject your own personal philosophies and politics, especially when you are a person who has passionate beliefs. For the purposes of civility and a love for a game that brings people of all beliefs together I want to state up front that although I firmly believe I am right philosophically I do not want to make anyone with opposing views feel threatened or belittled. It is the fact that we all can have diverse views on things that seem so definitive to ourselves that makes conversations such as this worth having. That said, there are a few statements that stand out to me as "socially accepted dogma" one of which I would like to offer an opposing view.The word "selfish" has undergone a change in meaning over the last 60 years. It's original definition was "being concerned about ones own self interests" It has since been appended to include the qualifier of "without regard to the interests of others." for clarification purposes I will use the newer and more commonly accepted definition. First I would point out that it is not evil to want to look after ones own self interests. In fact it can be said that doing so is a virtue as it implies also taking responsibility for ones own actions and decisions. Certainly expecting others to take responsibility for your actions and decisions can not be considered good. It is the "without regard to the interests of others" portion of the definition that comes into question. To this point I would like to ask why must I consider the interests of others when it is their responsibility to do that themselves? If for example we are in a business deal, I will look after my interest, the person I am dealing with will look after his own, and we must come to an agreement that serves to make us both happy. If the agreement does not make the other party happy it is his responsibility to bring the problem up and choose to not agree. It is not my responsibility to know or care what will make him happy. I look after my own self interests. He looks after his. We come to a fair agreement. There is no "good" or "evil" at play. On the other hand, society would have us believe that altruism = good. I take exception to this on the point that altruism is the philosophy of self-sacrifice. It teaches that the ultimate good is to give wholly of ones self. What gets overlooked in this process is that for every act of giving, there is an act of receiving. Why is it considered selfish (evil) to want to keep what you have and have earned, but it is not considered selfish to accept that which you have not earned from others? Furthermore when a government forces this kind of altruism on it's citizens where is the charity? One might say that a government that takes money from the wealthy to feed the poor is good, but it must be pointed out that it can't be considered an act of charity since it is giving away the property of others not it's own. A government that proclaims itself to be altruistic makes a false claim. A government cannot be altruistic. Since it produces nothing on its own it sacrifices nothing on it's own. Forced altruism cannot be good because it is a government that is forcing you to be altruistic not your own goodness. At the point a welfare system is enacted, feeding the poor leaves the domain of good/evil and becomes the domain of lawful/chaotic. If anything remains of the good/evil domain at that point it would have to be evil since the government is at that point taking the earned rewards of one citizens productivity and giving it to someone who has done nothing to deserve it. To me good and evil do not parallel selfish and altruistic but instead parallel productive and unproductive. I also would accept that good and evil parallel honest and dishonest.</blockquote>

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