At 11:01 PM 08/01/2000 -0500, altamira wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
>
> > IAN: But we can predict human action
> > based on the self-interest principle,
> > just as we can predict water action
> > based on the "flows down" principle.
> >
>
>Actually, predicting human action based on the self-interest principle isn't
>always easy. At the individual level, there are psychological quirks which
>cause people to act in ways that are detrimental to their well-being by any
>reasonable standard, eg. people who spend their spare time cutting their
>noses with pieces of broken glass, or people who don't change their
>lifestyles and eating habits even as their weight passes the 300 pound mark.
>At the macro level, you have various mass hysterias such as Holland's 17th
>century tulip mania, or the more recent rise and fall of the emu
>market(that's emu as in the bird, not the money) in the US, or nation-state
>wars.
IAN: The difficulty is related to determining
how all people will define their self-interest,
which by the nature of self-interest is individual.
But that they will act in a way they believe is
in their self-interest is, I believe, a given.
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GODDARD'S JOURNAL: http://www.erols.com/igoddard/journal.htm
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Asking the "wrong questions," challenging the Official Story
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