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Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

You've redefined a word. There's nothing selfish about doing something selfless because it's not being done in the 'optimum' way (as defined by you). It might be inefficient, but it's not selfish.

Regardless of your linguistic tricks, would they even have the motivation to make money on wall street? Would your 'optimum' plan even work with their personality? Is it actually optimal or merely fantasy?

You'd be better off thinking "how generous of them to be doing something" instead of having your intellectually questionable revelation.

On the subject of the long history of humans arguing over the meaning of words, this pg essay tackles the subject well:

http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

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Oh well, you're not convinced. It is however the entire point of the OP.

We might consider similar acts like eco-tourism, or disaster tourism, and so on. Where one spends enormous effort and money to visit the less-fortunate and go through the motions of helping. Arguably, to feel better about oneself. In those cases its clearly pretty selfish, and clearly better to have simply donated the money to a real charity instead.

Convinced? You're committed a magestic logical fallacy. Sorry you don't understand the mistake you've made and you're going to continue sneering at good people.

Don't switch from volunteering to disaster tourism. There are millions of people who volunteer, and only a handful of people who travel overseas to help.

What have you done recently? Do you actually donate? And did you read about the money the Red Cross can't explain? Is it really better donating money?

Your rhetorical style here is off-putting. I don't think he's committed any logical fallacy. It's perfectly possible to do charitable work selfishly. For example, if you were offered a choice between saving two lives or, for the same money, saving only one life but getting a nice packet documenting the one life saved, it's selfish to choose the latter for the purpose of making yourself feel better. Even though you're still doing good.

Actually you're wrong, using a variant of a false dilemma, both options are selfless, you're also annoyingly redefining the word selfish. Yes my last reply was a bit harsh, but the previous guy's a bit of an idiot in trying to claim I was 'not convinced' rather than admit his obvious mistake.

The key to your intellectual fallacy is that you've presented it as a 'choice', while missing out option 3, which is do nothing, or option 4, which is exploit the situation and ask to be paid for saving the life, or option 5 which is to expediate the deaths.

Suddenly both option 1 & 2 look good.

Both you and the op are suggesting we live in a world where perfection is the only possible way you can be selfless. The real world is a spectrum of white to black. In the real world it's impossible to be perfect and pretty good outcomes are still morally acceptable.

That binary outlook is convenient for you, but not the whole story. Something can be more selfish when compared with something else. It isn't a switch. I understand ignoring that makes for righteous indignation which feels good, so go right ahead.

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