Halcyon

Self-sacrifice can be selfish in certain scenarios, but I can't imagine much of a good feeling from smothering a grenade with your body.

Lord_Sloth

Thank you, Halcyon. A very nice example.Who the FUCK said that?
*looks around*
Hows about that guy who jumped down onto the train tracks a few months back to hold a perfect stranger down? I'm certain getting crushed by a train isn't be a very sought-out experience.

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Lord_Sloth's Theme Song
Brawl Code=0645-5430-9597==Wii Code=7378-2898-7096-7882==PSN=Lord_Sloth
"You can't help it. You can't fight it. You can't accept it. You just have to leave everything related to it because you couldn't get what you chose." ~Evil Dark Knight
http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf

Jonny America

I completely agree with the paragraph, and as Fruedish as it was, it is right. We reached the same conclusion in English class, no matter what you do, you do it for yourself. When you donate to charity, it's because you feel bad for the people in danger, so you give money to help them, but you do this to mend your own heart, and not theirs, even if there's was the inspiration. Everything you do is as a service to your own feelings, even if the instinct feels entirely selfless. True selflessness is fighting against your feelings, and whenever a person has been told do to things like this, or has experienced things like this, that person feels totally unnatural; inhuman.

So whenever something is truly innatural, like Hal said, smothering a grenade with your body, you're beyond the point of humanity.

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Lord_Sloth

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Lord_Sloth's Theme Song
Brawl Code=0645-5430-9597==Wii Code=7378-2898-7096-7882==PSN=Lord_Sloth
"You can't help it. You can't fight it. You can't accept it. You just have to leave everything related to it because you couldn't get what you chose." ~Evil Dark Knight
http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf

Halcyon

MIND = BLOWN

Jonny America

Wtf @ unexpected team work.

And yeah, that was good call <=/

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Dark Skywalker

You won't have a second chance to think you would have to act there and now I doubt that's what someone would be thinking at that type of situation.

Empathy

That's actually not a very good example. A lot of people would have done the same in that situation because everyone knows how higher-up the belly of the train is off the tracks. Sure, it would be nerve wrecking and would take some courage, but more people could easily do that without thinking twice because it's not as dangerous as it sounds.

But either way, humans are a very selfish species. You can't start naming certain instances when a human helped a fellow human. There are nonhuman species that aren't respected whatsoever by humans. I think humans do only care about themselves, in general.

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Lisa

How about a dolphin saving a child? Would this equal that all dolphins or even all animals are helping and loving creatures living by the principle of non-selfishness?

It's funny how humans praise themselves to be oh so advanced and better than a mere animal because they acquired themselves a religion based on a fairy tale book and therefore have a higher moral and "emotions". Yet they tend to be far more cruel and selfish than their nonhuman fellow beings.
As Empathy pointed out most humans wouldn't even bother to help someone of their own race left alone other species unless they get something for it and may it be just self-satisfaction. Saying that we "overcame our instincts" is simply ridiculous as we are still living in a herd, have sex and try to get the highest status possible so that our genes can spread.

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Dark Skywalker

What about the guy who jumped on a grenade to save his comrades?

Lord_Sloth

I'm just stating that not all humans are selfish beings who only think of themselves. Not saying it applies to every1.

lol Vegan athiests.

We weren't dissing animals as they have nothing to do with this topic...At all. Stop obsessing. As for man helping animals...

Polar Bear
Black Rhino
Silver Back Gorilla
Baby Balooga
Manatee
Bald Eagle
Panda Bear

Greedy hunters got them all close to extinction but the rest of mankind cared enough to fight to save them all. How dare we selfish species save another.

All animals caring and loving creatures. I'm sure you could play with a wild lion or give a bear a high 5. Hows about all the attacks we have per year? We've even had a DEER attack and kill a man. A FUCKIN DEER!!! Bambi's a fuckin bastard.

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Lord_Sloth's Theme Song
Brawl Code=0645-5430-9597==Wii Code=7378-2898-7096-7882==PSN=Lord_Sloth
"You can't help it. You can't fight it. You can't accept it. You just have to leave everything related to it because you couldn't get what you chose." ~Evil Dark Knight
http://cristgaming.com/pirate.swf

Jonny America

Lisa, are you trying to say that every dolphin would save every human every time? No. Absolutely not. I'm not very religious myself, and I think the Bible is a compiliation of everything that is wrong with the world today, but the fact that humans were given far more sophisticated neuro-capacities has to count for something. And that, I believe, is just for our self survival. We're not creatures with highly capable muscular adaptations, but with the power to think on a higher level we can formulate ways to keep ourselves alive. What do you think animals think about all the time? People talk about war like it's a man made invention, when other animals have been fighting, single or in mass numbers, for generations. All animals care about is keeping those themselves and those they have chosen to care for alive. The only times I've ever heard about animals saving humans and the vice is when the animal was domesticated, meaning it had formed a bond with the human, and even in that case, it's the animals emotional bond for the human that causes it to go after and save it.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is this. Usually whenever a person goes beyond a selfish desire, he or she ends up dead. All living creatures are designed to be selfish; it's the only way they'll survive. Thinking its our duty to go out and rescue any animal we can is acting against nature itself. However, in special cases like Tibet and Darfur, this condition is a level beyond selfishness; ignorance. Choosing to not acknowledge something you choose to not accept is another act of inhumanity. And this is a special case where humans should venture to end to aid themselves, but if the Coast Guard finds a dying animal in the middle of the ocean, they're not going to issue out calls to make sure it never happens again, and actually, they shouldn't.

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Kaio

Empathy

Sloth, animal attack on humans rarely occur in urban settings. Nearly all of those attacks happen when humans trespass onto a certain species' habitat or territory. You can't blame a lion for attacking a photographer who decides to walk out into the African Savannah to take pictures of their natural habitat. If humans didn't swim in shark-infested waters or go hunting in the forest where black bears exist, annual attacks would be almost down to zero percent. In most cases, the humans deserve it for thinking everything on Earth belongs to them.

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Jonny America

Did I just get tl;dr'd? How unAmerican.

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