Now convince me, and I want to be convinced, of the reason to build this project without bringing up selfishness or selflessness. If I am a human living here, right now, why fucking bother?

I have no children to think of and that also counts as selfishness if that's the whole reason.

Edit: the reason for selfishness not being brought up is because there's zero chance I see the fruition of this project in my lifetime, which as far as I can tell is all we get, and selflessness is because of the same reason.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Even the selfless/selfish paradigm is often a false dichotomy. Selflessness and altruism are powerful tools for winning the evolutionary lottery. When you share 99%+ of your genes with all the other hairless apes on the planet working together is really, really good for the odds of your genes surviving. Evolutionary advantage isn't a reason to do anything, but I do think it's worth noting that the idea we sometimes fall in to that an act must be selfless or selfish isn't really true. Hell, Kropotkin got it right - it's mutual aid. Cooperation and altruism help everyone, including the one doing it.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Admittedly it was the Orangutans who delcares Homo Sapiens to be "Hairless apes" and the Orangs are somewhat biased.

    • usernamesaredifficul [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      joining a union for example is objecttively the better move in terms of self interest for a worker than trying to negotiate on their own individual bargaining power