Chinese government tells people what they can watch on TV

[Taem]

Vampire bats will share blood with bats that don't have any.

Propagation of the species... Goes back to what I initially said: it all boils down to survival.

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Regarding altruism, I've seen that argument that anything we do for others is only to make us feel good, and that makes us selfish. Even if it makes one feel satisfaction by helping others, nevertheless the action done helps someone in some way. In other words, how it pertains to our feeling is irrelevant in my opinion. Altruism is altruism, whether it's done to make us feel satisfaction for ourselves or not.

I'm sure this could include donating to public radio, but in that vein, would also include donating to campaigns, or better yet, corporations donating to their "favorite" candidate because he believes in the view they share... its all Altruism, right? And greed is still greed.

I had an $70 sushi dinner tonight, knowing that my funds are tight at the moment. The waitress was very pleasant and did her job well. I left her a nice tip. But I didn't do it to make me feel "good inside". I did it because it was the right thing to do, nothing more nothing less. But let me tell you, I didnt get this "good feeling" inside afterward, nor did I feel bad.

Social norm. If you were in Mexico or Europe, you wouldn't think twice on NOT tipping her. Because it was expected of you, you did what was required to fit into society... survival at its finest.

Guess we have to agree to disagree there.

Seems we will unfortunately. We could go round and round in circles with examples, as we did in that Comedy thread, but could never reach a definitive conclusion on this subject.

A little OT. Here's a thought I've been kicking around lately: What if humans developed a way to "absorb" elements from the air that we needed to sustain our body, instead of having to metabolize nutrients? Then there would no longer be any need for food, and hence no restaurants, grocery stores, food suppliers, garden supply stores, etc., etc. I'd venture a guess that most of our industrial revolution happened because we needed new ways to harvest food and get food to the masses. I think food and all offshoots of business relating to food represents at least 65% of everything in our lives, from marketing to talk shows, to allergies to mental health issues - it surrounds us! Now couple that with removing religion from our world - just blanking everyone's memory of the subject, removing all texts, and starting from scratch. You just removed a further 25% of what consumes our lives and thoughts. Finally, what if you made everyone the same (you gave me this thought FireIceTalon, with all your Communism talk); I mean completely the same, i.e. asexual clones without any defining characteristics that reproduced via a non-enjoying event (instead of the pleasurable experience we have now), in other words, purely for the survival of the species. If you did all of these things, what would be the purpose of our lives? What would we do? What would define us, or better yet, what would drive us? I couldn't think of a thing, save for domination. There would be no reason to live. No real purpose to this, just a thought I had recently.