RE: The Case for "Enlightened Self-interest" on Steem /Help me fill up the @openmic reward pool this week/
Well you are kind of nitpicking, but not really. You are arguing semantics.
Arguing the definition of selfishness. If you wanted to go deeper in semantics i could argue that selfless acts dont exist. Even dying for another human being is not a selfless act. I could name you a hundred things why it is "selfish", but the point of this post is not that.
The way i define selfishness is clearly seen in the context of the post.
The point being.... By acting in the the self absorbed, non cooperative way, by placing the maximum short term gains above all else, the results you will get leads to "self destruction".
The motivation is always self interest. Motivation is not a variable here, so its really not important to discuss it.. Thats why its called enlightened self interest, its clear in the title that im not saying: "help others its cool"... Im saying do this to help yourself.
The distinction here being that the end result of one is to your detriment and the result of following enlightened self interest leads to you and everyone else benefiting.
Since the self absorbed short term self interest leads to long term results that are to your detriment, you arent actually acting in your self interest in the long run. You are acting out of stupidity. Yes, people tend to have a way of hurting themselves, which is why i mentioned the housing crisis.
This is why I said I agreed with your overall sentiment. I understood pretty much all that you're saying here in your original post. My issue was with the way you specifically defined "enlightened selfishness", because I think definitions are important.
If you're saying you standby the definition as you wrote it, hey, that's cool. It's your post. :) I'm just disagreeing.
Hehe. Cool. That is not my definition. I pulled it from a more credible source. 😁 I just tweaked it in wording.