^{_{Greed: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18000455}}

If this image speaks to you at all, then you need to hear this. Human beings have value. I'm not talking about some happy feeling inside that fills the hearts and minds of naive children. I'm talking hard cash.

What you might not realize, what most of economic theory seems to have been in denial of for the last few centuries, is that the value of people is not determined by money. It's the complete opposite. The money that you value is just pretend. What it represents that gives it any value at all is the work that people are willing to do for it. That means that people give money it's value. Without people, money has no value.

Lesson 1, Continued.

I would like to say, "That's it, lesson over. Now go on your merry ways and preach truth to power. Get shit DONE and invest in human beings NOW before the rest of the market catches on," but teaching you this fact isn't that simple, is it? "Why should I care about other people?" you ask? "I only need to be looking out for me," you say. That's the point! I'm want to help you see what IS in your own best interest. Investing in people is a long term investment. You can't scalp it. If you try, you'll end up regretting more than just missing out on a good investment. You'll risk having to take a loss anyway. Including the highest price of all, your life.

Are you Threatening Me?

Nope. Not at all. I'm simply telling you the facts as they are. Your defensive posturing is no different than the defensive posturing of a fellow homo sapien. When you get threatened, instinct drives you to threaten back, harder. When you get pushed, instinct drives you to push back, harder. When you make others suffer or endanger their lives, what do you suppose their instincts invoke them to feel? Do you think you can take on all the people that you've done wrong? If not, the smarter attitude to have is regret over what you have done to wrong them.

Do you see a pattern here? Tit for tat? An eye for an eye? Have you ever stopped to wonder why this idea of "fairness" is such a strong part of the human condition? Why do bystanders EVER care if you harm someone not related to them in anyway? Why do you lack the motivation that they have to stand up for the helpless? Well, to be honest, human society is a mixed bag in this case. For most people, whether they defend an innocent or not depends on if they can stand to lose whatever it would cost them to do so. Hence few pro bono cases that cost a lawyer money, but plenty of people willing to complain through social media about police brutality.

Survival Of The Social

You recognize this system don't you? That isn't lowering the value of other people, that's risk/reward analysis. Why demand justice for someone else? Most people would just spin the golden rule at you at this point, but I know that hasn't really clicked by now for a reason. Not to mention, it's a little flawed. The simplest reason you would rationally want justice and fairness to apply to another person is BECAUSE it applies to you too if you find yourself in their shoes, this is true. But the investment of helping those who are at the bottom pays off indirectly.

"Pay it forward," is one way you could look at it. People who get help when they need it are more able and more likely to offer help when they are in a position to. What's more, consider how the benefactor of your charity is given more opportunities to contribute and succeed in life just because you offered them your support. Even if they never pay you back, something else happens that still adds to your overall long term gains. As I pointed out before, the value of money is only as much as a person is willing to work for it.

The work is the value. If you didn't need to pay others for things, you would just be finding and building those things by yourself. The economic machine is fueled by labor. The more people are prevented from being able to work, the less work exists on the market to represent the value of your money. The money you held on to for safe keeping, the money you gained from your company's latest layoff, just became more inflated as a result.

Was it worth it?

No, because in the end you actually missed out on every opportunity that the downtrodden missed out on. Someone who can't find work is someone who can't offer you the products and services that they would be making if they had a job. Even if you don't need what they can make, someone important to you will. That can be a close friend or it can be an employee of yours who feels more capable of giving you their all because they were able to save up for that thing that you never would have wanted. What this boils down to is that we, the human species are all in this together. Your success IS my success. My success IS your success. As long as we work toward common goals, like survival, wellbeing, and happiness, the best wins you can have will always be win-wins.

Mind Over Self

Which brings us to the heart of the matter, your ego. You see, what allows for people to have a sense of empathy towards others is rooted in the "self " of the brain. Under certain conditions, such as undergoing a stroke, your sense of self can even be altered to include everything around you, including inanimate objects. Ignore the questions that are brimming over how the self is just a delusion for now. Just take it for what it is. Your brain serves a function of identifying YOU and gives you instincts to protect it. Rational thought, a separate and competing function, can allow you to see past this. Consider if your sense of self is calibrated to include the optimum set of things to represent as a part of yourself.

Be mindful of your own instincts. What is it that you feel a need to protect from danger? Whatever that is, it probably doesn't include everything that supports the wellbeing of the brain that is determining what it's self is. It can serve no other useful functions without that objective in mind. Protecting everything that supports your overall wellbeing is the more rational position to take.

This doesn't mean that you should feel obligated to protect a feral wolf that is threatening your life. What I mean is that this wolf is capable on some level of working with you instead of against you. Save your brain first, of course, just as you would sacrifice a limb towards the same cause. If you are threatened, the best options are fight or flight. However, you should recognize at the same time that the wolf is a part of an ecosystem that ultimately helps to sustain your life.

If you wipe out a species in your environment, which happens every day, you risk ecological collapse. At the rate we are going, we could actually see the day when we can't raise crops for food because the process of pollination is too complicated without the necessary pollinators existing anymore. Hate bees all you want, but don't be so complacent as to ruin the chance that you'll ever get to enjoy your favorite fruit again.

The Numbers Disagree. Show Me The Money!

Let me tell you something about Nash Equilibrium (NE). You might have hired someone to negotiate a business deal with Nash Equilibrium in mind, but I guarantee that if they helped you to hinder the wellbeing of others, they were doing it wrong. Put simply, NE is a point in your negotiations and strategies where it doesn't benefit you or anyone else involved to change strategy. This means thinking about the strategies of the other players involved in a game (did someone say, '"empathy?!?!").

This includes a situation in which you are making a simple exchange. For example, you have cash and you want to buy a product. I bet your first thought of how it works was considering that you might not want to ask for a cheaper price because the good offer on the table might disappear, right? There's more reasons than that. You think that you would always benefit in the case where the cost for the product was $0.00 or even better, they pay you to take it, but you would be incorrect. If someone is giving you the best deal and it turns out that it would ruin them financially as a result, you actually lose something. Return business.

Think about it. If I see you making a mistake that huge and I let you lose your entire business for $500 in gains to me, did I really win if I could have sooner advised that you pay me $100 in gains and could make the same exchange with you indefinitely? Take a man's fish and you'll be full for a day. Teach a man to sell you fish, you'll be full everyday and so will he. If he refuses to take your advice on how to benefit himself as well as you, then you can let natural selection in the economy run it's course. Until then, you can gain favor and preference from people who will give you the deal you really want.

The King Of A Bulldozed Hill

To what end do you even perceive this desire to gain money anyway? Is it a collector's item to you? Are you as obsessed with a growing bank account number as someone playing World Of Warcraft is obsessed with their experience points? What's your ultimate dream? To have all of the money in the world? What would that look like? An economy where you own everything...? There. Wouldn't. Be. An. Economy. No one else could buy anything, and no one would have a job to gain money from you. To your obsession, what you own might seem like it's worth everything, but to everyone else, there's no point in trying because you keep hoarding it. So why should anyone value what they can't have? You owning all the money in the world is the ultimate extreme of inflation.

In reality, that would never happen, sure, but plenty of steps towards that direction take place when there is any wealth inequality or wage gap. It's not as if it would take the last dollar bill to drop into your possession before the value of the dollar becomes nothing. It would be a trend that would match the amount of money that you hoard when you could otherwise create jobs with it. The end result of studying game theory has shown that (as healthy moral instincts would agree) the more complex the environment, the more often it is the case that the strategies that make the highest gains for the individual are the strategies that are in the best interests of the individual AND everyone else.

If you're still not getting this point, you should read my short single page story, Tale Of The Beer Tycoon. It's much more concise and to the point. It's even in the form of a fun story to read!

Ok, People Have Value. What Do You Suggest I Do About it?

Let's start with determining the ways in which we can apply value to people.

Loyalty

This is the virtue of having someone willing to help you when you need it the most. You probably have a few people like this in your life. Loyalty comes with trust. You go out of your way to help someone, and they will be ready to help you out when you need them. That can be a best friend, a family member, a coworker, an underling or employee, even a complete stranger who seems like they have nothing they could offer you in return. All you need to do to invest is prove that you are consistent.

Don't make promises that you can't keep, but do make them when you are highly confident that you can. If you can't do as you promised, look for a way to do more for them long term and be apologetic about it. A healthy individual will look to return a favor 10x if and when they can while an abnormal mind will try to get more out of you. Don't even worry about the latter. You'll know when you see them. What you have to lose from being cynical about loyalty just to avoid those types is far more than what you have to lose from someone trying to take advantage. Of course, just like in every market, don't count your chickens until they've hatched and don't keep your eggs all in one basket.

Haven't seen loyalty work like that in your own life experiences? Ah, you are referring to the many in between who want to repay you but can't. I'll explain further down, but you actually do gain something from them, they just don't hand it to you directly.

Genetics

Like it or not, even if you can determine rational reasons to not pass on your genes and succeed at not passing on your genes, the next generation will be that much more full of people who can't. So, if you find yourself making babies, whatever the reason, consider that motivation to be what you are supporting when you support people who are your blood. The only trouble with that is that we are literally all family however you look at it. If you value any set of your genetics and want to pass on the experience of life that you were given to your clone of varying degrees, only protecting your offspring is a bit narrow minded to that effect.

Take a moment to imagine every fellow homo sapien in the world as your family. Just like your direct family, you don't choose it, do you? There's even some whom you have to divorce from your life because they are toxic, right? So, why care about the immediacy of your blood when you could just as soon care about the virtues of the individual? Perhaps you could give your own offspring an advantage because you can't really help it but at the same time you should focus on determining the value that you would see in a family member with the same virtues when you meet someone new. Only then can you truly know how valuable they are to you.

Cooperation

Yes, the main theme of this post. But let me give another way to look at it. When you meet people who follow under an identity that you carry, such as your gender, sex, religion, nationality, or race, you perceive a bond that you share with that person that gives you their same perspective to a degree. This is the human instinct of Tribalism. In that moment you are thinking about an in-group that includes them as well an out-group that doesn't include either of you. There are things you would do for people within your in-group that you wouldn't do for people in your out-group, including granting matters of trust. You are always actively searching for in-groups which you can apply to while at the same time trying to ward off people who don't share anything in common with you.

If the goal is to include yourself with as many in-groups as possible and avoid being a member of the out-group, then the best way to apply the tribal instinct is to prioritize one tribe, Humanism. With this in mind, there is no one you can look at and say, "they are not a part of me." Anyone who contributes to the society is someone who helps you in some way because you are a part of that same society being contributed to.

Reputation and Knowledge

About those individuals who want to help you but can't. What would they look like? Most often there isn't an opportunity to repay you because of social class limitations. You could easily fix this by being more creative about what you might want from them. Offer an idea, or if nothing comes to mind, you can always suggest they pay it forward. It might sound empty, but this really does help you out in the long run. They help you do the work of investing in more people. Your network of loyalty increases. You can even build a fanbase for yourself and market you likability.

Then there's the other case, where people are simply disabled. They can't pay anyone back... except that they can. Whatever their problems, studying those problems contributes to our scientific knowledge of their conditions. By supporting their ability to economically sustain themselves, they remain as a pool of individuals from which we can learn more about human life from. This means that by the time you are old enough to be feeling the pains of aging or when you or someone close to you has a similar problem, the doctors are that much more capable of making things better for you and those you care most about.

Yes, BUT...

Here's the hard sell case that I have to make for you, friend. "What about the case where someone is toxic? A complete detriment to society?" What about it? Are you going to suggest that they are better off dead or nonexistent than to remain free to harm us all? If so, I would agree, at least when we are in a situation where resources ARE limited and we have no better alternative. That just isn't the world we live in today. In the US, however, the prison system is severely flawed as it misses the point I'm going to make here. Punishment is the prison's goal BUT punishment serves no purpose other than non-consensual sadism if it isn't serving to improve a person's future behavior.

As long as this sadistic purpose of prisons continues you will have to remain more on your guard as people are less motivated to behave cooperatively, let alone if they are already mentally limited from being productive at all. The solution is not to destroy, inhibit, or profit from anyone who is a problem to society. The solution is to transform our prisons into something more productive, mental health wards.

By doing this we collectively gain a value of studying and learning from the mental challenges which prevent people from being productive members of society. You've heard it said, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer," right? How much closer can you be than to have their motivations that pushed against you figured out and fixed with science? There's only one catch. You also have to become mentally healthy by being cooperative. You need to prove your own value to society by choosing to never again knowingly act against the best interests of others. IOW, you also have to give up being an asshole. You can not expect to get by as a parasite on society's ass.

A Final Warning Piece Of Advice

You may never see the backlash of taking advantage of others. If you claim some right of capitalistic freedom to con people out of paying thousands for health insurance that never takes care of people's health, you may as well be saying, "I support murdering people! Who's with me?" Most people willing to act violently over the harms you cause wouldn't realize you were part of the brain trust that fought to never cover the preventative healthcare their loved ones needed. Most of them would sooner pick a random selection of victims to lash out on. So what if a plane crashed into a different building that you weren't in, you still dodged a bullet, right? Wrong!

Why even motivate others to be violent at all? You still increase the likelihood of being attacked by them from zero to a value greater than zero. Is a lottery of death what you want for the society that you live in? It is if you push against the best interests of everyone. The exceptions you are trying to think of right now, those aren't really helping you. They pit you against everyone else, building your enemies little by little.

Technology is getting to the point where revenge could soon be a point and click away. Hasn't it always been like that in some way or form since the dawn of humanity? Point and bite. Point and bash. Point and slash. Point, click, and bang! Coming soon to a disgruntled member of the lower class near you, the point and click! Every other step is fully automated. Record, spray, slash, bang, inject, whatever their bloodlust desires! It was one thing when the only people you hurt were people who couldn't figure out much on their own, but with the internet to connect and educate people today, do you really want to take chances with enemies you didn't need?

In contrast to avoiding the uptick in enemies, what about trying to gain more allies? Did you know that science has already discovered why we age to the point of death? Guess what, not every species is inhibited by the same problem. I repeat, not every species ages past maturity! Right now, there is a technology of eternal life sitting there, waiting to be learned by humankind. Do you want to die? I don't.

I would love to be working hard in a laboratory to help learn this secret and share it with all of humanity right now, but I can't. Why? Because the way things are set in stone by the US education system now, I can't even teach myself the skills of working in a lab and get hired. I have been hindered from my dream career of being a scientist my entire life. Why? Because my single parent, no matter how hard she worked 2 jobs, could not afford to pay for my education. The system in place also does not see me as "fit" enough to get a full ride scholarship. What's more, the overpriced universities which act as gatekeepers to these credentials do not know how to effectively teach anyone.

The mere RIGHT to work to become a lab assistant is so privileged in the US that not everyone who is genuinely capable is allowed to do so. That means that I can't work to save your life AND mine from aging or other diseases. Tell me, why sit on your money awaiting your own death when you could be hiring EVERY capable individual to help make you immortal? Still think you're the smartest person in the room? I don't think so.

Do you have contentions to my argument? Disagree? Have advice on style or how it could be more persuasive to the target semi-functional psychopaths with wealth audience? Please let me know in the comments!

^{_{Credit: This is my own original work inspired by the many philosophies that I have been exposed to in life and my personal rants about them.}}

^{_{Disclaimer to UpVote and Follow Swappers: I will not upvote or follow just because you did the same for me. What I will do is take a look at your work if you are respectful in your request for me to do so. If I like it, I'll up vote it. If I like you, I'll follow you. I only ask for the same in return. If I could, I would reject the upvotes and follows from swappers because those are insincere. Please read my work and get to know something about me that you like before you upvote or follow. The reason for this is that trading upvotes and follows without any respect for content is hacky. If you don't appreciate content, this is not a good space for you to be working in. You shouldn't be working in ANY entertainment space if you don't respect the content. Go back to scalping tickets on ebay or something. Just spare me your penny for a lie.}}