Non-Egoistic Help

Research (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science): Psychologists from Yale and Harvard University conducted a series of studies.

“Human prosociality presents an evolutionary puzzle, and reciprocity has emerged as a dominant explanation: cooperating today can bring benefits tomorrow. Reciprocity theories clearly predict that people should only cooperate when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus that the decision to cooperate should always depend on a cost–benefit analysis. Reciprocity theories clearly predict that people should only cooperate when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus that the decision to cooperate should always depend on a cost–benefit analysis. Yet human cooperation can be very uncalculating: good friends grant favors without asking questions, romantic love ‘blinds’ us to the costs of devotion, and ethical principles make universal moral prescriptions. Here, we provide the first evidence, to our knowledge, that reputation effects drive uncalculating cooperation. We demonstrate, using economic game experiments, that people engage in uncalculating cooperation to signal that they can be relied upon to cooperate in the future.

“Humans frequently cooperate without carefully weighing the costs and benefits. As a result, people may wind up cooperating when it is not worthwhile to do so. Why risk making costly mistakes? Here, we present experimental evidence that reputation concerns provide an answer: people cooperate in an uncalculating way to signal their trustworthiness to observers.

“People who help others non egoistically and for no self benefit are perceived as more reliable and therefore help others,” which means that they want to seem more reliable and can be counted on and accepted to work and so subconsciously they do things that are considered desirable by others. …

“…we find that participants are more likely to engage in uncalculating cooperation when their decision-making process is observable to others. Furthermore, we confirm that people who engage in uncalculating cooperation are perceived as, and actually are, more trustworthy than people who cooperate in a calculating way. Taken together, these data provide the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, that uncalculating cooperation is used to signal trustworthiness, and is not merely an efficient decision-making strategy that reduces cognitive costs.”

Answer: Of course this is how such people want to be accepted.  So they promote themselves to acquire some “profit”:  gain social status, are promoted at work, etc.

Question: Would they behave differently if there weren’t this self-benefit?

Answer: Of course! Egoism is our nature, it requires calories, energy, an investment. Where does this energy come from? We have to see what we can get it from in the future; how we can fill ourselves. It is just lifke a gas tank in a car which you fill at a gas station.

People are ready to give a lot for the future reward that illuminates for them: for being spoken of favorably, for being promoted at work, so that their children will be proud of them, neighbors will respect them, etc. It is worth a lot!

Otherwise why do we buy a certain apartment or a certain car and spend a lot of money on it, when we could live in perfect peace and quite well without them.

Our actions cannot be free of greediness because our nature doesn’t allow us to do so! We have to spend calories on everything, joules (energy measuring units), no matter how we measure it. Therefore we have to receive this energy, which means that there has to be something that provides us with this energy for which we work, and if we don’t receive it, we cannot work because we are all mechanisms! We can only operate only if we have available energy or if it illuminates for us in the future.

Comment: But the researchers at Yale and Harvard don’t even mention egoism.

Answer: Of course not because they don’t understand it. They believe it is natural for a person who gives to do so and that there is no egoism in him and even quite the opposite.

Comment: But they did conclude that such actions are rewarding.

Answer: This is not considered egoism. Egoism is the clear fulfillment of our desire in order to harm others. If I bargain with someone in order to buy something for a cheaper price and he wants to sell it for a higher price, it is normal. It is human nature, but it may be the opposite case.

The painter Modigliani, for example, painted with “blood” because he was so hungry he couldn’t hold a paintbrush and fell exhausted at his easel. This is considered a noble soul, self-sacrifice, not selfishness. But in fact, this is overt blatant egoism.

A person lacks the clear accurate understanding of his nature; he loves to distort everything. Humanity is still immersed in its games, in confusion.

We must understand that nature operates according to a very simple principle: If there is energy, I turn around; if there is no energy I stand still and that’s all. Therefore, if we do something, it means that there is a hidden benefit in it, and if we wish to work without it, we have to know how to connect to an upper source of energy by studying thewisdom of Kabbalah and become a perpetual motion machine.

Then we will receive energy from an external source as if we are connected to an invisible pipe of energy for the sake of others. If we receive it, we will be able to work, but not in any other way.
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From KabTV’s “News with Michael Laitman” 7/24/16