themadkat
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Posts posted by themadkat
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There is no way I can possibly unravel all that's going on here but, factually speaking, I'm just going to add that Sophia's point about sunk costs is a well-demonstrated trend in human psychology. We do necessarily place more value on something that has a high sunk cost and, conversely, this can cause us to overvalue something and not realize that sunk costs are just that, sunk. This is one reason fraternity hazing continues to be so brutal and that houses with the toughest pledge periods have the "strongest" brotherhoods: what the boys went through is so tough that their psychological response is to place immense value on what they supposedly worked so hard to earn. So if Sophia is making the argument that we tend to value that which we have invested more in, whether or not it objectively has more value, that argument is empirically supported.
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I'm with her. If you want to have a debate, go to the debate forum. If you want to have a discussion, then suggest you offer something of value for what you'd expect to get in return or you'll find people behaving a bit snippy with you. If you don't have to make your case, Jenni certainly can't be bothered to make hers.
There is no biological basis for altruism the way Rand defines such. There is a biological basis for any action or entity that successfully passes on genetic material. It's called natural selection.
Ethics is most certainly NOT biology.
I have a question. My PhD graduate study basically revolves around the topic this poster raises. I would like to have this discussion with the above poster, provided he is intellectually honest. However, I recognize that this is not the proper section of the forum to do this. Can the mods move this topic to a better location if the OP agrees to continue the discussion with me in a serious manner? I'm not an Objectivist myself, but as I believe my position on the matter would be much more consonant with Objectivism than the OP it could still provide a value.
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Three: the first one who became Nightwing, the second one who was killed, and the current one.
Yeah, the Robins are kind of interesting. Dick Grayson has more or less "grown up" now and is on his own as Nightwing, although he is still part of the Bat-Family. Jason Todd was more or less just kind of a brash thug, as was made apparent after he came back from the dead. Tim Drake, the current Robin, is supposedly not as physically adept as Dick Grayson was, but he is a superior detective, and according to Batman he may eventually be a better detective than Batman himself.
On a side note, I believe Teen Titans Robin is Dick Grayson.
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Who wants to be friends with women, I associate women with corsets, ropes and shouting. Why bother girls are boring.
Corsets, ropes, and shouting? What, do you only run into women at BDSM parties or something???
I have to agree though, a lot of women have incredibly boring interests.
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Actually the biggest worry I would have about serving in today's military is about the rules of engagement, courtesy of the Just War Theory. If you join, you will be taught that the life of an enemy civilian is more valuable than your own, and that you should expose yourself to significant risk of death or bodily injury in order to save the lives of enemy civilians.
I don't know how much of that teaching is actually put into practice in the various armed services, here or abroad, but I know it's being taught in the service academies, and I know that the media is judging the actions of militaries -- both foreign and domestic -- accordingly.
So be careful all of you...
What exactly constitutes an "enemy civilian"? The definition of a civilian is a noncombatant. So how are you to say they are your enemy? What's to say they have anything to do with your military opponent? I understand that sometimes civilians aid and abet the enemy, by providing them supplies or shelter, for instance. But there is no reason to think that all civilians do that. I think the conception of civilians in an occupied country as the enemy is extremely dangerous and unproductive. The truth is that you cannot actually end a conflict without winning the "hearts and minds", even though you may technically win militarily. As long as there is still a will to fight on the part of a large segment of the population, the war will go on and the threat will not be neutralized.
The horrible part about war is that it means innocent people have to die, and I don't think you can win a war without killing civilians. But it's one thing to know that civilians are going to be killed by actions you absolutely have to take and quite another not giving a damn whether you kill anything in your path.
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http://www.amazon.com/Why-Smart-Executives...9967&sr=8-1
Amazon has reviews if your interested Kat. You can also look inside it.
Thanks man. Looks like this book could be worth checking out. I found it in pretty good condition for less than 2 bucks at a thrift store yesterday. I bet it will still be there. Maybe I'll grab it.
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Anyone read this book? Any thoughts on it? Flipped through it real quickly and it seemed interesting, but it's hard to say much about such an involved book without really reading it carefully.
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40% is absurd. You need to do something about that immediately by taking advantage of various tax breaks and loopholes. There is no reason you should be paying this high a percentage, at any income level. The only excuse is that you are inefficient or not properly educated in managing finances.
OK, you know what, this is the second time I've been condescended to on this thread. What's the deal? I forgave sNerd because he didn't necessarily know that I do my own finances. What's your excuse, now that I've made it clear I'm not a financial moron? Don't presume to tell me you don't have a comparable tax burden as well. Apart from your income tax, are you counting your social security and medicare tax, which there is no way to reduce regardless of any loopholes, etc? Are you counting the sales tax you pay? Are you counting your property taxes, which yes, you do pay, even if you rent, through the higher cost of rent your landlord must charge to cover their greater obligations? Are you counting the opportunity cost of decisions you could have made differently were it not for a more favorable tax situation? Because yes, those things do matter. If you really think it over, you will find that you pay far more of your income into taxes, one way or another, than you could have conceived.
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The problem with your analysis is that you are assuming that the issue lies with companies "cutting special deals" with the government. The issue is that it is possible at all for anyone, including companies, to be able to "cut deals" with the government. There has to be something wrong with the system if my uncle is a member of Congress and I can ask him to have the government write me a check to recover some of my taxes that the government took in the first place. I shouldn't be able to do that. How is anyone able to do that? Because the government is interfering in the system. By taxing everyone, and then granting only "tax breaks" to friends or pet projects that get them votes, the government is creating an anticompetitive situation where there was none previously.
So what solutions are there? One might suggest getting rid of tax breaks altogether. But then the government would use selective "tax increases" as the form of manipulation. One might then suggest restricting taxes to a flat rate for everyone, preventing increases or decreases for select groups. But would this be any better? Would they not still find some means of manipulation?
It seems like we are shooting around in the dark at a nebulous enemy. The government, acting as the "supply", is able to fulfill the "demands" of friends and supporters, through manipulation of the economy. Trying to cut off the demand will not work because the supply will still exist and people will always find a way for that demand to be fulfilled. We need to remove the supply altogether - ie, separate the government from the economy.
What we need are principles in which to ground our reasoning. The basic principle to be used here is the right to property - that no one should be able to take another person's property unless they have agreed freely upon the transaction, with no use of force. Taxation in its current state is a use of force and is thus a violation of that right. Remember that even though people can vote for legislation that violates rights, those rights do not just disappear.
The moral solution is an end to forced taxation altogether, replacing it with voluntary taxation. You can think of these as simply donations, but they are more like voluntary insurance payments, considering the intended role of the government to uphold and protect the rights of its citizens. Given the current reality, this solution is more of a long-term goal, and any progress that is made in that direction is a plus.
Yeah, I get that. Pull is bad. Anyone can see that. But unfortunately the entire power structure of American politics is pretty much based on pull and patronage. It's almost like some kind of perverse protection racket. I don't see it going away in our lifetime, but hopefully perhaps we can beat it back a little. The point I was trying to make is that as we change things for the better, we have to make sure not to just remove the influence from some areas but leave it in others and call it good, because that still leaves some people at a competitive disadvantage for reasons that are wholly arbitrary. In other words, if you're going to reduce the tax burden on, say, tech companies, you can't just eliminate Microsoft's taxes only, you need to cut taxes on Apple, Google, Dell, etc. at the same time, or you're hamstringing those companies for no reason at all, except perhaps that they didn't have as much lobbying power as Microsoft.
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Individuals get lots of "tax-breaks". When you file your taxes, you must get at least the so-called "standard deduction" and the standard per-person "exemption". When your company buys you health-insurance, this is like your income, but the government gives you a tax-break on that money. The same for money you place into certain types of accounts (like 401(k)s or IRAs). All these are "tax-breaks" in the same sense that businesses get "tax-breaks".
I think the problem is in trying to define what one means by a "tax-break". I'm not sure it is possible to come up with something meaningful.
I am aware of this. I prepare and file my own taxes. The government subsidizes the fact that I have borrowed money, for instance, because I can write off my interest. I do not think anybody should be getting tax breaks because I find it more than a bit silly that the government is encouraging me to take certain courses of action that I would not otherwise, in order to shelter my money from certain taxes. If I wanted to do those things, I would, I do not require an extra incentive beyond that. I would much rather the government just not charge me, nor anyone else, that amount. I recognize that the best solution is to eliminate forced taxation all together, but as I really don't ever see that happening in my lifetime, I would much prefer a low flat tax that everyone pays regardless of circumstance, maybe 10%. I'm kind of taken aback by the ridiculous tax burden that I currently face, probably upwards of 40% of my income, even though I fall into a range most people would consider lower middle class.
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I saw that as well and was wondering what they were referring to. If the government is in fact giving them money, then they should stop. If it is simply tax breaks (which is my guess, since the rest of the discussion was about taking away tax breaks) then that company should consider itself lucky while it has the tax breaks.
The only problem with giving tax breaks to big corporations, as opposed to giving tax breaks to everyone, is that it is an anticompetitive practice (big surprise there). If these megacorps are cutting special deals with the government that would not be available to newer players, or even certain other major players, this is a bad thing. It's more or less the aristocracy of pull. I'm not saying that's what's going on here. I'm just pointing out that tax breaks are not as clear-cut beneficial as some make it sound. In fact, it may be tougher to tell the difference between a tax cut and a clear-cut subsidy than you think (for example, what would a tax rebate be?). I'm all for tax breaks, but only if EVERYONE gets them. Unfortunately I don't think government plans on doing that any time soon.
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I find this story fascinating because as I recall, Paulson came to speak at Dartmouth's 2007 graduation and I listened to the speech (my best friend was graduating). He seemed fairly pro-free market and I am surprised to hear this coming down from him. Apparently he is not what he seemed. I think the current crisis shows we need to drastically cut back the Fed's power, not increase it. Suppose I'll have to keep an eye on this Paulson fellow.
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I've noticed the huge quality gap between comments on Amazon and Youtube as well. It's because of the type of people who surf both. I think the type of people who make idiotic comments on Youtube wouldn't be surfing around Amazon as much.
I love those comics by the way.
Edit: I think people on this forum should take this essay's advice to heart. Too many shitstorms around here.
It's funny you mention that xkcd comic. The one about "Someone is wrong on the internet!", my group of friends passed that around chuckling about how one or more of the group members is completely that person, especially the compulsive Wikipedia editor.
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I don't see as to how the argument you've presented so far supports that statement. So far, I see you saying that you can enjoy certain pain because you understand that it is tied to athletic growth. That isn't pain in itself. The other idea is that athleticism releases endorphins - which again isn't the pain itself. (The same can be said for capsaicin, by the way)
It seems to me that you're making the same argument as Sieur Bertrand. Note that I didn't say that there was anything wrong with enjoying some pain as connected to sexual conquest - I said the problem was with the idea of enjoying pain in itself. Which is something that neither of your arguments support.
In response to its cause. To do so intrinsically would be hedonism.
I want to clarify that even though I got to it in a roundabout way, I am specifically referring to pain in a sexual context. I'm not sure what you mean about conquest. For me that's not what it was about and frankly if I did feel it was about conquering me I probably wouldn't enjoy it. What I'm talking about is using pain as a mechanism to enhance or as a preliminary to other fun getting-off-related activities. I don't think this is something that would work for everyone. I'm disputing the notion that there is necessarily something psychologically wrong with you if you enjoy pain.
I agree with you that pleasure experienced purely and exclusively for its own sake is hedonism. That question of mine was referring to musenji who brought up intrinsic enjoyment of pain. I was trying to point out that I don't support intrinsic enjoyment of either pain or pleasure. Perhaps I was unclear in my original statements when I said enjoying pain in itself, since it makes it sound like I am arguing for some kind of intrinsic value in it. What I am trying to distill, perhaps unsuccessfully, is that it is the physical pain sensation which is sparking the enjoyment and it is not SOLELY an intermediary to the other activities - rather, it is tightly connected to it and it is a unified experience.
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I think the issue may be that the qualification "under certain circumstances", insofar as those circumstances are delimited, negates the idea of the pain being enjoyable "in itself". The more you box in the context, the less intrinsic the enjoyment is.
Touche. But I challenge you with this question: do we (rationally) enjoy pleasure intrinsically, or as a response to its cause as well? I'm cautious of claims that something is intrinsically this or that, especially such contextually loaded things as pleasure and pain.
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Exactly, and the same can be said for everything else good that can come with pain: growth, correction of an error, triumph in a struggle, etc. The point isn't the pain itself, and the central idea of masochism - that pain itself is a positive - is a mistake.
Exactly - Sieur Bertrand seems to be equivocating pain with the ability to feel pain. They are two very different things.
I'm going to respectfully disagree and say that sometimes pain can be enjoyed for its own sake, although I'm going to distinguish between physical pain and psychological anguish as I have never enjoyed any kind of emotional suffering. I'm not sure if I can give a line of reasoning that will satisfy any here as to why physical pain may be enjoyable for its own sake other than to say it's tied into a particular state of mind and it's probably not for everyone.
I also want to say that I'm not in alignment with Sieur Bertrand's argument, as frankly I'm not even sure what the heck he's trying to say and I can't very well support something that makes no sense even if I tried. I'm trying to give an account for why physical pain may be enjoyable in itself under certain circumstances.
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Thanks for all the well-wishes, guys. I'm hoping that in 6 or 7 years I'll have another announcement similar to DarkWaters so I can be Professor Kat. And in case I do ever make it over to Austin, which isn't a big stretch, I'd love to talk to Tara Smith, as ethics is the area of philosophy I find most interesting.
I knew I was in the right place when I was interviewing the folks I'll be working with at Texas A&M and we had a good laugh on how awful and stupid postmodernism is and my potential advisor said she was drawn to my applications because I talked about ideas and research questions rather than "aww look at the cute monkeys". She also mentioned having read and enjoyed Rand's work.
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Matus,
Actually, my soon-to-be-father-in-law (Todd) had a similar reaction to my argument. He and his wife are both life-long Objectivists, and they have been together for more than 35 happy years. He said that after so long, he couldn't even imagine having a romance with anyone else. I see that perspective, but Todd also said that during his marriage he has never had a close friendship with another woman he was attracted to. He has had several close male friends during that time. Which begs the question: why is it that all of his close friends over the years have been men? Why haven't any of them been women?
A few general questions for everyone:
Is there anyone here who has been in a committed relationship for a long time, who also has a close, intimate, independent friendship with a member of the opposite sex? I admit that such relationships can be healthy in some contexts, but I think there's a reason it is relatively rare.
--Dan Edge
I guess I would say I do. I have been in my relationship for seven years now and couldn't be happier. We have every intention of remaining together forever. We've been living together for about six months and it's been great. But I also have a couple extremely close male friends. I'm not sure what you mean by "independent" friendship, but I assume you mean they are at least mostly my friend and not "our" friend. I would say that's true of these fellows. My man knows them and they are friendly and get along but he is not close with them like I am, he just likes them as good guys. I am also still friendly with my ex-boyfriend. Granted it was high school and not very serious, and he does not live near me, but we still talk occasionally and I think he's a nice dude. I think it is best to stay friends with an ex whenever possible, unless they have shown by their actions that they are unworthy of the affection you originally gave them. Just because you and someone else you care about recognize that a long-term relationship is not going to work out between you, that says nothing about the correctness of your identification of value in them, and it's unjust to suddenly pretend someone does not possess virtues they clearly do. Not every person of value in the world will make a good mate, but that doesn't mean you should artificially devalue them.
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I want to share this with you folks:
I took this today. It has incredible personal significance for me. For anyone not familiar with the logo on the hat, it's Texas A&M, which is where I will be pursuing my PhD come August. Getting into grad school has been quite an ordeal, a project of nearly two years' work, but I was able to get into a program that is perfect for me and I did it entirely on my terms. I'll spare the details unless folks really want to know, but I definitely want to make it clear that this represents a huge achievement for me.
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I agree, and I see now that my own matter of managing relationships could use some rethinking. I do have one question though for you Dan: what do you think of the notion that one should have multiple sexual partners before settling down? Yes, I do understand that sex is alright in the proper context (the woman is of significant value), but it concerns me that one needs multiple partners before picking a permanent one.
I think the notion that one has to "sow their wild oats" before "settling down" is wrongheaded. First of all I want to point out that to my way of thinking assuming you will be a different sort of person before you find your life partner vs. after is stupid and can cause a lot of problems. You need to be who you really are, all of your best self, in order to FIND and GAIN a relationship with your life partner. What good could ever come by getting used to being a certain way and then expecting someone else will come along and drastically change you? All seems a bit secondhanded to me.
I believe that most people will have multiple sexual partners in their lives and that nothing is wrong with that. It's neither good or bad. It depends entirely on the circumstances of the person and why they pursued the relationships they did. If your partner is slightly older and has traveled far and wide, finding many people of value along the way, I don't see any rational reason to hold it against them if they have had several partners before you, provided you are both on board with the current relationship and are dedicated to it. However, if that same person for whatever reason chose not to pursue their attractions/connections over the years and has had only a couple partners before you, that's fine too. One is not more virtuous than the other. I also reject that a person's less-than-savory sexual past should be held against them. If someone went wild in college but now regrets it and believes they were mistaken, why should that make any difference to your relationship with them now? When a rational person feels they have made a mistake they change their future action so they do not repeat the mistake. So it shouldn't be relevant to a current relationship. I hate this whole notion that a person can be "damaged goods". People change and grow. This is a good thing to be encouraged, not fodder for an attack.
Bottom line, the getting-it-out-of-your-system theory really reeks of treating people as objects and conquests rather than valuable, worthy individuals. And I don't think it says much good about your self-esteem either if you repeatedly consent to sleep with people you do not find worthwhile. A healthy relationship depends on the state of the partners here and now, not what they did in the past (caveat: how they FEEL about what they did in the past, how they evaluate it to themselves, DOES matter). Hope that was clear as mud.
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I confess I find this whole discussion to be a bit weird. I have very good friends, close friends, of both sexes and it has never been a problem. Granted, my "best" friend, who is not my romantic partner, is usually female, but not always. I have been in my romantic relationship for years now, happily (I was extremely fortunate to find a fantastic guy on the first time around and we're sticking with it). I would never dream of giving up on the possibility of having close male friends. I think it would be more than a bit strange to have a close male friend who my man doesn't at least know a little, but that's only because I think it's strange to keep any major part of your life from your long-term partner. I have never felt conflicted with a desire for these guy friends and only in a couple instances have they ever had feelings for me, which they were able to quell when they realized that a relationship with me was neither possible nor desirable for either of us in the long term.
I will add this as well. It seems from the discussion that my sexual attractions do not match up with some of the folks here. On a physical level, at least, I'm indiscriminate. I can look at nearly any baseline decent looking guy for a couple minutes and see myself banging him and maybe even get that familiar twinge that makes me want to go up to my room for awhile. I'm a great appreciator of the male form, and I don't really see anything wrong with this. Thing is, since I'm used to being attracted to so many people, I'm also used to not acting on that attraction with fairly minimal effort. Just because I find these guys sexy and it's likely that I'd enjoy sex with them on a physical level, I know that's not what the best kind of sex is really about for me, so I simply don't pursue them. I've never quite bought the notion that if you are a person of self-esteem you will only be attracted to the reflection of your highest virtues. I do believe, however, that a person of self-esteem will be extremely selective in who they ACTUALLY choose and will only sleep with someone they deeply care for and feel that they can love, if they don't already. So to me, not sleeping with someone who gets your juices going is no big deal. I'm a horndog but not easy. I get the feeling that for others participating in the discussion they don't work this way, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Some other tidbits that may be relevant to the discussion: as far as friends go, gender isn't too relevant for me. I don't prefer a close friend to be male or female, it's all about the individual personality and how it stacks up with mine. And as another side note, by and large the friends I've had who have really messed with my head and complicated my life excessively, they've usually been the girls rather than the guys.
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Of course if that's your thing...
I mean we're not here to judge... 
It's a bit off the original subject but it sounds like we're getting into a discussion over whether androgyny is sexy and what, if any, conclusions a person may reach about themselves if they find that androgyny is attractive (I would say virtually none, but oh well). Some people are bound to find androgyny sexy and some aren't, and that's cool. I personally don't care for it, not as far as physical features go at least. I like big furry dudes with muscles and a medium/deep voice. Then again, I can definitely be attracted to an androgynous personality, so there's that. For whatever reason, androgyny seems to evoke strong reactions, positive or negative, in many people. Perhaps it is because line-blurring of any sort causes the human cognition to take notice.
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Was there a new development stating that he was going to be kicked out, or is this line of reasoning your own? Either way, I'm confused.
Several major clerics in Iran have basically told him to get bent. He doesn't really have a power base anymore.
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Depends on the context. My first response is that pain is a means of your body telling your brain that it is being threatened; there is an element of harm. If a person finds pleasure through this act of harm, it tells me that psychologically this person wishes to override the basic pleasure/pain responses that most animals depend on for survival. Man, being a rational being, could override this response, but then my question is when and why would an individual want to?
I think you raised an excellent point here. Why would we ever want to override or, perhaps more accurately, subvert the pleasure/pain mechanism? Speaking for myself, I can think of many reasons. A very straightforward example is, I am an athlete, and there have been many times during the course of either training or competition that I have been in fairly intense pain, but if I were to stop training right then, how would I ever become strong? Just today I was training down in the company gym on my break and the bench presses I was attempting hurt quite a bit. This is because I have chronic shoulder problems. Perhaps ironically, the only way I can ever truly heal my arm is to correct the positional and muscular imbalances in the joint through exercise. So, if I do not endure the pain of exercise and stretching, my arm will never get better. This conclusion is unacceptable to me as I am an active person and a full life requires that my arm work more reliably than it currently does.
Let's try something a little less dramatic as not everyone likes throwing around heavy things as much as me. Perhaps your passion is music and you want to become a guitar virtuoso. When you start playing the guitar, it hurts your fingers. If you continue to play sometimes your fingers may even bleed. But if you allow that to dissuade you then you will never acquire enough skill to achieve your goals. The more you push through the pain in the beginning, the faster your fingers adapt after which point the pain is no longer a problem. Or you can be like Pete Townsend, one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time, who thought nothing of shredding his hands during a concert (there's a notable picture of him holding up his torn, bleeding hand with a huge smile on his face).
But you know what, as far as our masochism discussion goes, I don't think for most people it is about merely enduring pain. Some people may be doing that, but that's not usually what I associate with masochism. That's more like a girl gritting her teeth for a few seconds while she's losing her virginity. It's not that she likes the pain, it's just that it'll be better in a minute and then she can get about the business of enjoying the sex. Why would a rational person actually ENJOY pain, rather than merely put up with it as a means to some other end? This is where I'm not sure how my answer would intersect with Objectivism or whether Objectivists would consider this a bit off, but I submit that it is rational to enjoy pain under certain circumstances. It has been my experience in the world that one frequently encounters pain in the pursuit, or even subsequent to the achievement, of one's values. Certainly in an ideal world this would not be the case, and one would feel only pleasure and happiness from the pursuit of rational values, but I'm sure we can all agree that this is not an ideal world and that many things are not as they should be. Frequently greatness is persecuted and belittled. As a result of this, I have learned that rather than an indication of a problem, pain may often be a signal that one is on the right track. Please take this comment only within the scope it is intended; I am hardly implying that all pain indicates success. If I smack my head against a wall repeatedly, that pain does not mean I'm doing something great, it means I'm a dumbass and I shouldn't be hitting my head on a wall. What one must do is identify the source of the pain. If the source of the pain is a virtue, you may actually find it is possible to enjoy the pain in itself, so long as the cause is virtuous. Getting back to this masochism business, say that you are with your beloved, treasured mate. You trust them more than anyone, you trust them with every part of you. They are capable of bringing out all of your most intense states of being. The experiences of that lover pushing you, testing you, driving your senses to the edge with that most primal and visceral of all sensations, pain, and sharing that with them, that intensely private part of yourself, but sharing it in the context of something beautiful rather than ugly, I personally derive intense value from that experience. And the funny thing about masochism, when done properly, is that you, not your lover, are actually the one in control. You know for certain that any time you ask them to stop, they will, if you ask them to kiss the welts and wipe your tears if you should happen to cry (I don't but some people really do push these things that far) that they would, if you ask them to hold you until the shaking stops they do without hesitation. You know all this, but you don't ask, you don't give in, you delight in the sensation of seeing just how much more you can take knowing that it's your choice.
It's tough to explain things like this if it's not the sort of thing you're inclined to enjoy. If anyone has a more specific question about things that may help me target my explanations a bit more. By the way, in case anyone hasn't guessed, I don't exactly condone the sex party culture that surrounds much of "popular" BDSM practice. I don't see how it can possibly be special or valuable if you aren't with someone you strongly care for, unless you either a) don't truly let go and show your deepest self or
don't really have anything of value to put out there, in which case, what's the point?
sociobiology
in Debates
Posted
That was my impression, and that was why I wanted to discuss it with you. It is easy to take work in sociobiology and submit it as evidence for altruism, but I believe this is sloppiness either on the part of the scientist if that is what they concluded or sloppiness on the part of the reader if that is what they take away from an article that doesn't say that. My position is that sociobiology says no such thing (though it is a separate question as to what the personal beliefs of EO Wilson are on the matter) and I was going to explain why. My intention was not to jargon you to death. I'm just excited by the topic because it's what I do.
Human behavior does have a biological basis. That is a fact, otherwise there would be no heritable behavioral disorders, for instance. However, I think that for whatever reason, scientists like to overstate the influence of that basis and underestimate the degree to which a thoughtful, introspective person can affect and alter their motivations.