Hotu Matua

Sorry, but "having doubts" is not enough as a parameter of rationality. However, I share with you the view that, following the human benevolence premise, most women act rationally, pursuing their own rational interest, and those who choose abortion do it morally. My contention here is that the right-based approach frequently bypasses a richer and more meaningful ethical discussion of each case.

Continuing with our brainstorming, custody and property ownership share at least one common trait: they imply borders of exclusion. The fence of my property keeps others outside. They cannot take decisions on my piece of land, or house, or sofa. Similarly, there is a fence over my children. Other parents cannot take decisions on their education, nutrition, enterteinment and so on. Please look at the strength of the fence over my children: Other parents are not morally allowed to take decision on my children even if they could prove to be better custodians (more capable of offering a better education, nutrition, environment, etc). than me and my wife. Hitherto, custody and property ownership look pretty similar. However, the difference lies in what the owner can do with its property (morally speaking, we are not talking here about police or State) and what the custodian can do with his custodee (if that word could exist). Custody implies a limitation, derived from the nature of the custodee. The more autonomous (self-directed) is the being, the more limits it sets to the decisions of the custodian. The closest the being is to self-recognition (closeness in time or in degree), the strongest the limits of custodians decisions. It is moral to choose what school your 5 year old boy will attend, but not necessarily which colour of T-shirt he will wear today. It is moral to choose what your 2-year-old toddler will NOT eat, but not necessarily which he will eat among several appropriate options. And certainly, it is moral to choose whether your 5-day-baby will be breastfed or resort to milk formulas, but not whether she will eat at all today or not. But then why, to begin with, should we be moral when excercising custody?

Thanks very much for all your comments, guys. Declawing the cat at this stage is not an option where I live. Vets are not allowed to do it by local Law. Now, the facts are that I don't want the cat in my life, and that's why I keep looking for foster "parents". But I won't kill it either. My question is why would killing my cat be immoral? The cat is my property. The cat has no rights. So, why not just killing her? You know where I am coming from. I believe that a basic reverence of this sort of sentinent beings helps my life. Specially when I have chosen, at some moment in my life, to take care of one of them. I believe that my daughters derive benefit when I show them how to treat these beings with respect for what they are, and for what I am. Here the issue of custody or stewardship comes into place. Being an owner of a sofa is some respect different that being the owner of a cat. The sofa doesn't seek self-preservation through self-generated actions. The cat does. The sofa doesn't have a mind. The cat does, at a non-conceptual level. The sofa's condition is basically the condition I want it to be. The cat, however, has a broad range of possible states or conditions that I don't choose. Therefore, I cannot be the owner of a cat in the same sense I am the owner of a sofa. I cannot own the cat's mind. I cannot own the way she makes me feel visible, somewhat guessing some of my states of mind and reacting accordingly. In this sense, wouldn't it be more precise talking about custody that about ownership of a cat? If we explore the concept of custody, maybe we will be able to understand how, independently of the conceptual or non conceptual thinking of a human newborn, parents have moral responsibility on her well-being, beyond the traditonal discussion about baby's rights. Since rights of newborns or deeply mentally disabled persons represent a courteus extension of the core concept of rights, it follows that we should carefully consider from an ethical point first, which entitites should receive this courtesy, and what is the rational basis of an extended rights umbrella.

No, I am not. I don't know how valuable your furniture is to you. I don't know how willing you are to cut your cat's nails with enough frequency. I know nothing about your habits, needs or preferences. I don't know if you are allergic to cat's hair. So, at this point, I cannot say whether adopting, not adopting, or abandoning a astray cat is the right thing for you.

According to an Objectivist theory of values, which means a relational (not intrinsic, but objective) theory of values, I value Misha because 1) Misha is real and has an identity 2) There are objective needs in me that are met by Misha's reality or identity, and that make me act to gain or keep Misha's existence 3) These actions are consistent with my hierarchy of values, among which survival qua man (meaning, long-term flourishing) is number one. So far, so good. Now, what is that reality of Misha that meets my real needs and which moves me to keeping her alive? Well, it is true Misha is cute, but a disecated animal would also be cute. I did not adopt a disecated animal. I wanted a live animal. Why? Well, I love Nathaniel Branden's explanation: visibility. Misha is a sentinent being, smart enough to interact with me in a sense that makes me feel existing. I get the confirmation of my existence, my intelligence and will because the presence of this cute animal which is capable of responding, to a nice degree, to my intelligent and willingful actions. Certainly, a chimp would give me more confirmation of my existence, more visibility, than a cat. A human friend would give me more visibility than a chimp. And my wife gives me much more visibility than a friend. The more I see my existence reflected, the more visible I feel. Narcisus fell in love with his reflection, or so the myth goes. In some sense, we all fall in love with our reflections. A person, though, produces a reflection much more significant to us than an inanimate mirror. A person's reflection of our own values, principles, ideas or preferences is specially powerful to us because he/she could have a different set of values, principles, ideas or preferences. He/she could be different, and nevertheless has made choices that are similar to ours. A cat has enough intelligence and will (different from, say, a fly or a fish) as to make us feel visible. And that is why we care about cats much more than about flies or fish. That's why cats (but not flies or fish) can make us company and, to some extent, to a primordial extent if you wish, they can be some sort of "friends". We honor or respect cats, dogs, dolphins and chimps in a different sense we honor dragonflies and frogs. If we see an animal being killed on a highway or in a lab, we react with more compassion if it is a cat or a dog than if it is a lizard or a frog. It makes sense to honor animals that either 1) provide economic value or 2) provide visibility. In a principled moral life, and all other things being equal, we act benevolently towards these kind of animals. Therefore, unless a cat is objectively worsening my flourishing (preventing me from expanding my intelligence and will) the moral thing is to act in a benevolent way towards a cat. A non-benevolent attitude towards cats, dogs, dolphins, chimps and the like show despise to conciousness, to otherness, or, to put it together, to other's conciousness that confirm my own existence: to visibliity. I have discussed so far the ethics of an action based on benevolence. But there is another aspect to consider: personal responsibility.

This thread is not just another thread on abortion. It is different because I share the Objectivist notion that the unborn has no rights. Women who choose abortion and their doctors and nurses should not be considered criminals and put under retaliatory force by the State. My approach here is to show how abortion can be judged as moral or immoral, based on an Objectivist ethics, beyond the usual discussion of rights. I'll start by telling you about Misha, my cat. She was adopted by my family about two years ago. She was very young and lonely, an alley cat. This is a pic of her La gata (5) por Hotu Matua, en Flickr We knew very little about cats. We imagined it would be a matter of getting for her a place for she to defecate, cat food and vaccines from the vet. Soon we realized she was destroying our furniture. We could not cope with cutting her nails frequently enough. Yesterday we sent our sofa and chairs to be upholstered. We know this will not stop here. We have thought in getting rid of Misha. We have looked for months for families that would adopt her. No success. I have thought in abandoning her on a hill nearby, where I have seen some feral cats. A feral cat is a descendant of a domesticated cat that has gone back to the wild. My wife and I have even engaged in fantasies on how to kill her. In the end, we always discard abandoning her or killing her... and we keep looking for other "foster parents". Would it be immoral if I posion Misha? I think it would. I think that keeping her alive and losing my furniture is more valuable to me than killing her and keeping my furniture. But is this thinking rational? and how does it relate to the abortion issue? More to come...

Please do not underestimate the strength of a non-right-based approach to abortion. I mean, approaching abortion for a purely ethical standpoint, not involving the use of relaliatory force from the State (e.g. jail for women or doctors) I want to emphasize this because, in many realms of life, even when the use of retaliatory force is not applciable, we fight evil by education, persuasion, or ostracism and boycott, . I believe that women have a right to abortion, which doesn't necessarily mean that all abortions are ethically sound. Reverence for human life, derived from the benevolent human premise, as I call it, may indeed cast light to some cases in which abortion should be considered evil, even when no violation of rights is involved.

Another application of the benevolent human premise, is the deliberate extension of rights to severily mentally disabled people. Rand vaguely justifed it by saying that they may "improve over time", and pointed out that this extension was a "courtesy", meaning, not derived in the same way that rights are derived from the existence of mentally able people. To me, a "courtesy" is another way to present the benevolent human premise. Its another way of saying: "I don't know what kind of people would John become if he wasn't deeply mentally disabled. I don't know whether he would become virtuous or vicious. But I bet for the most likely thing: that he would become a respectable, productive, creative member of the human family. I choose to treat him as such." The benevolent universe premise (that reality is shaped in such a way that I can achieve happiness if I excercise my rational faculty) and its corollary, the benevolent human premise (that man's nature is such that I can achieve happiness in society if I excercise my rational faculty) are paramount in making Objectivism a philosohpy "to live on Earth". Do you agree with me? Any further insights on this?

The premise of the benevolent universe could easily be extended to mankind. Even when we cannot know in advance whether any particular stranger is good or evil in character, the premise make us think that, since rationality is necessary for survival and we have plenty of proof that manking has survived, flourished and produced great things all around us, most strangers must be rational enough as to further our flourishing. Evil people must be the exception, not the norm. Otherwise, our civilization would be gone long ago. I would call this the "benevolent human" premise. Now, what about the non-right-based argument about the morality of abortion? According to this view, every case of abortion should be considered on a case by case basis, rather than declaring all abortions evil or all abortions good. According to the "benevolent human" premise, an embryo will most likely produce a good person, which is a good thing for my world. So, all things being equal (meaning, not having enough objective evidence that my pregancy and motherhood will either further or hurdle my flourishing) the ethical thing would be to keep my embryo. There would be instances where the weight of the evidence is against keeping it (e.g. my pregnancy is a product of a rape, or I am ill enough, or poor enough). But having an abortion just because my contraceptive method failed, in an otherwise healthy, productive and happy woman, might be unethical. Of course, I am not claiming here rights for the embryo. I am talking purely about the ethical nature of killing an embryo.

Human dignity is frequently presented, in non-Objectivistic philosophical discussions, as inherent to man. Dignity is derived from Latin dignitas, meaning "precious", "valuable", "deserving". According to some ethical thinkers, the fact that man is man (e.g. bestowed with intelligence and free will) makes man valuable, regardless of what other people can think. So all men deserve respect, an ethical treament for the fact of being men (or, as some thinkers would want us to think, because they are "human"). In Objectivist theory of values, intricisism is invalid. Things are not precious in themselves. They are deemed precious by a valuer. This process of appreciation, certainly, relies on objective grounds: on reality. But objects do not have an inherent "aura" of value, independent of a valuer. If I am understanding Objectivism correctly, I value John because: 1) What John is (a person) 2) What John represents to my flourishing, that makes me act to gain or keep his existence. Item number 2 is essential for the relational theory of values that Objectivism embraces. If I happen to meet a serial killer for example, I have no grounds to show him respect. Now suppose John is a severly disabled but otherwise peaceful stranger, who is highly dependent of other's attention and money to survive. He values himself somehow and his family values him. But I don't value him a lot. I might or might not initiate an action to keep him alive. If I do, I can help him out of a "reverence for human life". What this "reverence for human life" stems from? Or, more precisely, how a basic "reverence for human life" helps me in my own flourishing? The implications of having a relational, and not an intrinsic theory of values are interesting. If a mother doesn't value her embryo, and the embryo doesn't value itself because it is not aware of his own existence, the embryo is valueless. However, if "reverence for human life" is something that helps people in their own flourishing, then the ethical thing for this mother would be to keep the embryo as long as there are no objective evidence that getting rid of the embryo would helps her flourishing more than keeping it. This argument against abortion would be entirely an ethical one, and not a right-based argument. According to intrisicist, though, dignity exists beyond any valuer appreciation. The embryo or the person in permanent comma has "dignity" and should be treated with respect. What are your thoughts about all this?

Let me make some remarks on Greebo arguments: 1) Greebo hasn't properly responded to the observation that truth can also cause harm. By keeping focused on the harm produced, and not from the action prevented (if any), Greebo keeps locked in a circle. 2) If I create a tablet that is far more advanced and far cheaper than the iPad, and customers abandon Apple and flock around my product, the reputation of the iPad will fall inasmuch the reputation of my tablet will raise. Apple will suffer devastating losses and many workers would be dismissed. A lot of "harm" will be done to Apple. However, I will not be a criminal. 3) Damaging someone's reputation by telling a lie keeps being a very, very bad thing. But there are ways to deal with a bad guy, other than initiating force with retaliatory force is not applicable. Bad guys can be punished by ostracism and boycott.

Thank you, Grames. Yes, I had read The Rational Optimist and got inspired by it....

Thanks for your comprehensive and... yes...benevolent comment, wHyNOT But I really think that people are not HIGHLY prone to act against their own self-interest. At least, I would omit the "highly" and I would just say "they are prone". Otherwise, capitalism would not be possible, and rational egosim would not be feasible, and Objetivist morality could not be lived in this earth. The whole moral and political system Objectivism fosters is about believing that people basically are not suicidal. Man is, fundamentally, a heroe. Human choices are, generally, right. Just look around you. Start with your workplace, your business, your neighbourhood, your school. Do you see people killing each other? Most of the time , you see people finding the way to cooperate with each other. You see traders, partners. You see people falling in love. You see skyscrapers, bridges, vaccines, iPads, songs, supermarkets, laboratories. Watch the behaviour of infant mortality, calory consumption, productivity per man-hour, life expectancy, % of homes with electricity, people dieing fom AIDS. Took whatever parameter and examine it in a big scale (in a short scale, in certain countries and years, things can get pretty bad, but in the long term, for example, in a 50 year period of time, they all do fantastically well). Mankind is getting better. Manking is becoming freer. This is attested by any rational analysis and by any indicator. Objectivism will defeat competing philosophies for the same reason science has beaten religion in most of the planet: it works. Those who believe, on the contrary, that most people act irrationally, like wolves, are the ones that claim that an ilustrated intelectual elite should gain control over the lives of everyone. But Ayn Rand herself did not based her hopes for the future in intellectual elites. In the case of America, for example, she trusted in the sense of life of the common man. This speaks highly of Rand's consideration for man. Even when she forecasted that America was going Fascist, she always added that she believed that Americans (the common John Doe) would be able to stop it. When personally asked in a TV interviewed about the fate of Africa, she expressed hope in African minds. "Teach them capitalism", she advised. Africans can learn capitalism, can apply it, can be transformed by it. It is worth the effort.

What is the real difference between "prolonging one's life indefinitely" and "seeking immortality"? Let me put it this way: when I say "pursuing immortality" I mean "pursuing to live as long as YOU want to live", and not as long as your body is programmed to live. .

I woudl say that love is the most conditional thing in life. It is not found just in a "ON/OFF" mode. The options are not limited to "existing" and "fading away". Love is exquisitely sensitive to the degree in which you see your own values, mind and existence reflected in the other person. That is why there is an infinite variety of relationships you can establish with colleagues, buddies, friends, lovers, or life-long companions. And that's why love changes so much over time. The love you had for your one-week-old baby is not that same the one you have for your 8-year-old son and will not be the same when he is a 35-year-old man who is now an alcoholic and has quitted his job.

According to the Benevolent Universe premise, joy and happiness are the norm of life, not the exception. Disaster is exceptional I would like to hear your opinion on these two optimistic corollaries of the Benevolent Universe Premise. FIRST: Objectivism, Capitalism, Individualism will triumph. In a individual scale, and in the short term, Objectivism can be accepted or rejected. But in a global scale, and in the long-term, can it be defeated? . The universe is made in such a way that, if you act rationally, you will achieve happiness. My point is that my fellow men are also part of that universe, that reality. They are metaphisically bestowed with reason as a tool of survival and... well... they have survived so far. We have done quite well as a species. And, although on a individual level, a particular person can choose to think or to evade reality, when you take mankind as a whole, and human history as a whole, what you see is progress, development, an increase of wealth, health, happiness and prosperity. Since Objectivism is rooted in reality, and men generally use reason to approach reality, I believe that Objectivism will end up being the dominant philosophy in the world. I am so sure that I can say that, provided no big asteroid hits the Earth too early, Objectivism and capitalism destiny is to become the dominant philosophy in the world. SECOND: Benevolence to strangers is rooted in reason. Flourishing needs love, friendship, and these in turn imply visibility: the confirmation of the existence of self by seeing my values reflected in others. Since my fellow men have the faculty of thinking as their main tool of survival, and they have survived so far, it follows that most of people, most of the times, act rationally. It means that conceptual formation, and an ethics based on man's life, is the norm and not the exception. Therefore, most of strangers are, in principle, qualified to be treated as if they would share my most fundamental virtue: reason. Most strangers, most of the time, will do more to my flourishing than to my damage.

Mmmm.... if you were given the chance to join an American club of fundamentalist Christian altruists or a Mexican club of Objectivists, which one would give you a higher sense of pride? I mean, I believe that you can feel proud of belonging to a group that upholds your deepest values. But "America" is a collective that encompasses too many kinds of people. Which specific "America" are you proud of? The one that sent soldiers to save Europe from Hitler or the one that sent soldiers to Irak? The one that abolished slavery or the one that tried to keep it in force? The one that teaches creation in biology class or the one that reads Atlas Shrugged?

One key point in this discussion is that we act ethically when we act expecting that our action will make us succeed in surviving and living qua man. In principle, I act to pursue life qua man, not just today, but every day. I don't stop pursuing life when I get 80, or when I get metastatic cancer. For life lovers, death is not respectable. Death is not a shrine where we, as humble lambs, merrily sacrifice our minds. Death is an undesirable happening. Death is something that happens AGAINST our will to live. Death is our enemy and not , as Orientalists want us to think, just "something that happens and we should not resist". A true man will not just "let it go". This is why the pursuit of immortality is a natrual, though not widely recognized, corollary of an Objectivist ethics. Unless we recognize this, we wil be struggling with the ethical issue of valuing something that will outlast our deaths. Every day we enjoy life, we win. And the day we die, we lose. Death entails defeat. John Galt might have been a winner 90% of his life. But that last 10%, when he gets Alzheimer disease and he loses his memory, his long-term planning capacity, his mood, his conceptual abilities, he is a loser. That is why we make research on Alzheimer and the biology of aging. We understand nature only to be able to command it. We are not to obey death, as dictated in our cells. We are to understand it and command it. For the context of the discussion, I value my daughters regardless of my personal death. I value them as if I would always value them, because in principle, I don't settle down with death.

As you have probably heard, bribes are prevalent in Mexican government. In a truly free Mexico, the government would take care of courts, police, defence, and nothing else. When talking to my friends on how a free society would look like in Mexico, they frequently ask me back what would be the incentive of judges to reject bribes. OK, we have here Juan and Pedro on court. Pedro has violated Juan's rights. But Juan is poor and Pedro is rich. Pedro tries to bribe the judge and his staff. What would be the incentive of the judge to reject Pedro's bribe, if the judge is receiving a fixed salary from the State? In all free enterprises, self-interest is the main drive to avoid corruption and bribes. If you really care about the well being of your own business, and your employee is making a decision that hurts your business even when gets him better off in the short term, you just fire that employee... or put him in prison, depending on the fault. But what would be the interest of the State to keep only honest judges, if there are no competitor governments to which citizens may switch? What would be the interest if the State cannot go broke? What would be the interest if the Chief of State is not accumulating capital from his good performance as governor? With these questions in mind, anarchists seem to have a point here: if government were private companies, they would have the normal incentive all companies have to keep honest employees and get rid of the dishonest. What do you think?

Thank you very much, Eiuol. Your comment was very insightful. You' right: your thoughts are still happening to you, not to someone else. There is no sense in splitting your identity between Hotu Matua, the observer, and Hotu Matua, the thinker.

Thanks, Volco and Sluggy Bear. In mediation you are not experiencing the same thing as if you wer reading a text, Volco. When you are focused reading a text, you are making associations, finding causal connections, framing questions, exploring answers, and sometimes memorizing. When you are focused in your existence, you are just perceiving it. You are getting at it as a primary. It happens more or less like when you experience the beauty of an art masterpiece. You get it in a single blow. Another difference from the experience of focusing in a text, is that in reading a text you make connections with the past and the future, or at least in a sequential order of facts and notions. In meditation, is all about the here and now. It is not about understanding one by one the interconnections of reality, but about aprehending reality as a whole with all the connections included, myself included, in a single package.

I was reading last week the first chapters of a book about meditation. Although I was really wary of the appearance of any esoteric content at the turn of every next page, I found myself realizing how some concepts are not inconsistent with Objectivism. The main one is about "focusing". For many promoters of mediation, meditation is about placing yourself as an observer of your thoughts, so that you can realize that you are not your thoughts. As an observer and master of your thoughts, you can command your mind, use it as a tool. You can be concious about your own existence, without having to resort to conciousnes about any concrete content of your thoughts. I think Objectivism acknowledges the role of instrospection as a valid cognitive tool for things like your own existence. In addition, Objectivism upholds that focusing is volitional, deliberate, and that what logic thinking comes AFTER you focus. Indeed, it is compatible with the fact that many times you find yourself immersed in a chaotic river of thoughts, like the noise of a radio station, and that you have deliberately to first recognize you are NOT that river of thoughts, and then to command them, to choose the thoughts that you think appropriate to achieve a goal, to start a logical approach to any problem or issue to achieve a goal. Meditation, as I am understanding it, is an excercise of focusing. Focusing on what? On the fact of your existence, independent from the uncontrolled flow of thoughts that crosses your mind. On the fact that you can choose to think, choose not to think, and think purposefully. What do you think about this? We know that a conciousness that is devoid of content is a contradiction. But what about a conciousness whose content, at any given time, is the plain fact of your own existence, as a primary? When I am concious that I am concious, my conciousness is not empty. I am just performing an act of instrospection. Am I right?

When addressing the ethics of charity in Objectivist books or circles, sentences in a negative form are almost always used: "It is NOT IMMORAL" "There is NOTHING WRONG with..." But it is about time to start using positive sentences as well. Charity IS rational and IS moral in some circumstances. Charity DOES promote self interest in some circumsntances. I am connected by a global network of voluntary exchange with thousands of traders. Sometimes bad things happen to good traders, making them less able to trade with me. When bad things happen to good traders, it is likely that my life project will be in danger. Inasmuch as my life project is in danger, the rational thing to do will be to help affected traders to get back on their feet and trade again with me. If I work importing automobiles, my life project will be more endangered by devastation in Japan after an earthquake than by devastation in Haiti. So I will prefer to invest more time or money in helping Japanese. If I have family and friends in Haiti, who in turn deal with hundreds of traders there, my life project will be more endangered by devastation in Haiti than by devastation in Japan. So I will invest more time or money helping the Haitian. Helping poor children who live in your city to have access to books, nutrition or culture makes to me a lot of sense. You derive benefit from being surrounded by happier people. THe benefit, however, is not as high as the benefit you derive from being surrounded by a happy wife. Therefore, you invest much more time and money in supporting your wife than supporting the poor children of your community. Therefore, the ethics of charity is really not about its INTRINSIC content, but about its relation to your own rational projects and goals. It is not about them, it is all about you.

The objectivist view of true self-interest follows this line: I am a rational animal, master of my life-project. A self-interested action is that which allows me to continue being what I am: a rational animal, owner of my life project. The subjectivist view of self-interest follows this line: I am a whimsical animal, mastered by obscure forces. A self-interested action allows me to continue being what I am: a whimsical animal mastered by obscure forces. However, since whims come and go unpredicted, and obscure forces are... well... obscure, I can never determine if any particular action is in my self interest or not. So, I cannot determine the morality of any of my actions. Therefore, ethics is bullshit.

You are right. A rape is not an act of altruism. It is an act of hedonism. Altruism and hedonism are two sides of a coin called irrationality. Evil, ultimately, comes from the irrational, from evasion, from negation of reality. Ayn Rand condemned hedonism, but she didn't spend so much time and effort doing it for one simple reason: Hedonism was not the main enemy, at least in her time. Hedonism had been attacked by ancient and modern philosophers so well, that there were few pro-Hedonists in the intellectual elite of her world. Altruism, in the other hand, was bringing entire nations to disaster through Fascism or Comunism. Furthermore, it was weakening freedom in the USA. Therefore, Ayn Rand linked altruism with evil almost as a shorthand, as a connection with immediate, practical implications. Sometimes I wonder whether Ayn Rand's battle against altruism in the Ethics arena made her miss the importance of fighting Hedonism more firmly. It is becoming more and more an enemy of reason in our world. As technology progresses, masses of people get access to pleasurable things so easily WITHOUT gaining them, without obtaining them through productive work and reasoning, that pleasure is becoming the standard of value for millions. The unskilled worker of our times can enjoy an incredible amount of things that an unskilled worker 100 years ago could not. The modern worker is not necessarily more virtuous than his counterpart of 1911. He is just luckier. He piggybacks on the accumulative success of the best men. So far so good, but then the temptation is to stop realizing how is wealth generated, and to stop realizing that pleasure is a reward, not an end. Survival and "life qua man" were in the past more connected than now. In the future, the genius of few men will be enough to keep millions of overfed people playing videogames of virtual reality for ages at an insignificant price. Or maybe millions will be almost permanently under the effect of "marvelous" drugs that will keep them in an excited mood that they will interpret as "happiness". My message is: Do not understimate the threat of Hedonism. The ultimate enemy is not altruism itself, but irrationality.