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Comment by badminton1 | Hacker News Reader

I was in a restaurant in SF near embarcadero. A 70+ year old woman eating in another table got her check, about $18, but realized that left her purse at home. She wanted to leave to get her purse in order to return, and pay. But the lady that runs the restaurant started yelling "where is the money?". There were also some cops eating at the restaurant, and asked if there was anything wrong, and then proceeded to arrest her.

The restaurant was full of people. Many of them seemed to have a good living standard. But nobody got involved in helping an honest senior person in distress.

I got involved. I paid the bill and the cops set the woman free. Even if it was intentional (unlikely), if you are stealing food then you probably need help anyways, especially if you are old.

I was horrified to see how a society so prosper can be so dehumanized. Shame on you people.

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"I was horrified to see how a society so prosper can be so dehumanized."

In fairness, where should their morals come from? I'm not religious myself, but it seems that for all their faults religions provide a shared morality. Why should a society without a fixed set of morals be humane? There's no source of truth as to what humane even means. Why is helping an old woman humane? Why should I believe you, or feel shame when something like this happens?

Because most humans feel bad when they see situations like this, even the ones that weren't taught "this is bad" by a religion. Religion just has better marketing.

I believe it is part of our human nature to care for other humans. Why else do people give money away without getting anything in return (even if you count it as an altruistic act)?

"I believe it is part of our human nature to care for other humans."

That only works for some people. Where do sociopaths fit into your worldview?

That only works for some people. Where do sociopaths fit into your worldview?

s/some/the vast majority of/

Sociopathy is incredibly rare. The existence of it doesn't affect the substance of the parent's (or my) comment, which is about society as a whole, not a tiny fraction of outliers.

But it's a critically important minority - it's well researched that CEOs, bankers, and other highly successful types in business have sociopathic traits. (I attach no moral judgment to that - just stating it.) Full, diagnosable sociopathy and psychopathy are rare, as you point out. People with a decreased ability to feel empathy are a minority, but they have a disproportionate ability to shape society.

For that reason, I'm always somewhat annoyed when other atheists (I'm an atheist myself) rely on some shared sense of human empathy and argue from it - it's only convincing in a society where empathetic people wield power. We don't live in such a world. To convince people to act humanely even if they don't feel empathy, we need to appeal to a higher objective source of truth as the religious do, or find an argument for humane acts that doesn't rely on appealing to people's consciences.

Good point. The religion was a magnet for people's moral compass, and once it became too inconvenient society showed it the door. The elites replaced it with a notion of dog-eat-dog world, and the proles happily ate it up and made it into reality.

In fairness, where should their morals come from? I'm not religious myself, but it seems that for all their faults religions provide a shared morality.

Sure, based on defining in-groups and out-groups so we can decide who is and isn't worth mercy and salvation.

Works great when you're in the in-group. If you're, say, gay, it might not seems so great...

Personally, given that empathy is wired into our cerebrum, I'd think the golden rule would be enough to decide that helping a senior in distress might be the right thing to do.

"given that empathy is wired into our cerebrum" is not a universally true statement. What about sociopaths?

Because if altruism didn't exist, if you only received things in exchange for something, your life would be very, very different.

And if you appreciate that, you will at some moment give back. Not necessarily in the form of money.

Altruism does not need a religion. It also exists in the animal world.

Altruism doesn't mean "cooperation" or "getting along with others". It's a specific moral philosophy invented and named by Auguste Comte. The actual philosophy is horrific and has nothing at all to do with benevolence toward anyone.

My niece lives in SF, and was assaulted by a homeless lady who knocked her to the ground while trying to steal her backpack. She called me in tears and told me that when it was happening, streams of people were walking by ignoring her, and one guy literally said to her as he walked by "Welcome to San Francisco."

How awful.

Just a possible alternative that people may have not initially paid enough attention to get the full gist of what was going on and could have thought she was trying to leave without paying or some such.

People are very much in their own world here compared to other places I have lives/traveled. I offer my seat to pregnant, older, disabled, injured, etc. people and notice that most people are too absorbed in their phones or conversations to even notice there is someone that needs a seat.

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