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this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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IIRC there was study a while back that debunked the idea that people get more conservative as they age. It turned out that rich people with no morals live longer, because they’re entirely self interested, and being entirely self interested they can afford healthcare, thus living longer than non-conservatives on average.
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From a philosophical point of view, everyone with absolutely no exception is "self interested." I believe the idea you're talking about is whether bettering the lives of other has been incorporated in your identity at a young age making your self-interest ultimately beneficial for others. It's a complex topic, but the idea is that you don't really truly do anything for others, ever, but if someone convinced you that if you don't do good by others, then you should be ashamed or that if you do, you're a better person, then you do good for others for your own sake, to view yourself in a better light.
I'm a bit confused about your comment though. Are you arguing that the study found that rich people skew the data because of their longer life? If so, I find that hard to believe given the proportion of "rich people," and the consequently negligible ability to statistically skew a population if it were actually randomly sampled.
well what it did is found that conservatives tend to be wealthier, because they’re more likely to take steps that make them wealthy at the detriment of others, and their community. Being wealthier, they have better access to health care and live longer, which means that older people tend to be more conservatives because poor people die younger. Not because getting older makes people more conservative.
I wish I still had the link, it’s way in the rear view back on zombie reddit.
As for the “everyone is without exception self interested” thing, that’s seems like a bit of pedantry because it’s not so much that liberals aren’t self interested it’s that self interest isn’t their primary motivation where in conservatives self interest is really all they’re interested in (they call it “me and mine”). one sees the world as collaborative, while the other sees the world as a socially Darwinistic competition. Which it isn’t.
The idea that “ you don’t really truly do anything for others, ever, but if someone convinced you that if you don’t do good by others, then you should be ashamed or that if you do, you’re a better person, then you do good for others for your own sake, to view yourself in a better light.” is false. It’s a very convenient falsehood because it justifies just about any form of behavior. Typically when someone makes a broad statement about something “everyone” believes all they’re really saying is that that is what THEY believe it, and that they can’t imagine how anyone could ever think about things differently.
Mate... I'm not saying you're wrong, but if I don't see the paper for myself, I'm inclined to be critical of your summary of it. I don't disagree that it is plausible conservatives indeed are more wealthy, but you have too many assumptions in your comment for any proper conclusion to be taken.
And the idea about altruism isn't really mine, it's a very very old and still existing idea in philosophy. Of course it has proponents and opponents, but it hasn't really been rejected to a degree sufficient to dismiss it, it just remains like pretty much all philosophical concepts, debated. So claiming it is false is a bit arrogant, especially without a proper argument. It would be like claiming free will exists or doesn't exist with confidence (and this analogy is ironic because egoism is a significant part of the free will debate).
And btw, before you think I'm defending conservatives, you should know I'm a scientist, so I am critical of anything and everything until I see the evidence, and even then, I am critical of the way the evidence was gathered and how it was interpreted. I'm not trying to be "pedantic," I'm trying to be accurate, because a minute twist on the truth makes it false.