Smokers don’t seem to be under any illusions about whether it’s bad for them? When people have conflicting desires, I think what even counts as “self-interest” gets complicated. Often people are acting at cross-purposes to some of their desires.

I suppose the 'self-interest' of desiring a cigarette outweighs the 'self-interest' of preserving your health.

Reminds me of debating Bentham in high school. If the feeling of self-interest of a murderer acts upon is greater than the self-interest of someone not to be murdered, etc...

Maybe the point is not to reduce judgment to one qualitative idea.

aka discounting time value, or something like that. "the feeling i will get now by smoking this cigarette, though fleeting, is worth to me now than the chance of years more living, or a healthier late life, if i do not smoke it".

Yeah self-interest occurs across different time scales and consists of a mixture of logical and emotional factors.

It’s also subjective and dependent on the persons values, beliefs, etc.

"I want another drink now. Hangover is tomorrow-me's problem"

One certainly doesn't smoke imagining it's for the benefit of others - if anything it's the selfishness of now against the benefit of future me.

This thread is starting to remind me of Stalker.

Also a little bit of Stanislaw Lem, I remember in one of his books he mentions a service that matches people who want to die with people who want to kill ;)

Self-interest includes chemical dependence and emotional satisfaction.

The broader point is that self-interest is not purely logical because humans are not purely logical beings.

Now you have weakened the generalization to the point it's meaningless.

What act exactly do people believe to be in their self-interest? Why are you claiming it's the anti-social ones and not the pro-social if the believe is not rooted on reality?

Belief is categorically not rooted in reality. That's why it's called belief and not fact.

Humans are intrinsically irrational. That is a plain and simple fact. Humans operate exclusively on what they think is true instead of what is objective fact. Subjectively an individual human acts in ways that are roughly rational and coherent within their belief system and world view. The problem is that this frame of reference is entirely subjective and is only tangentially related to consensus objective reality. Assuming that you can apply your own reasoning and logic to all other humans is fallacy.

You must accept the fact that other people do not share your world view and will not act with what you, personally deem to be rationality.

> Humans are intrinsically irrational

Yes

> That is a plain and simple fact

No

You've not examined the cognitive resources required to properly locate "fact" when humans have other interests, like staying alive and providing for their families. The mechanism seems to encourage directional stances rather than comprehensive ones.

* I wave some sort of unreal RFC 2119 wand at you *

Also, pure rationality is sort of an empty idea - without goals or preferences, it's not really possible to reason your way into deciding an action - just understanding the various likely consequencies of various courses of action. Without that hunger in your belly, your reason has nothing to recommend.

If you want an example, I guess the enthymeme would be:

a) Internet privacy is in one's self-interest

b) Many erroneously believe privacy on the internet to be goal of terrorists, hackers, etc.

c) A subset of these people then act against their own self-interest by vocally supporting mass surveillance, or voting in candidates who do so, in the name of the apparent self-interest of safety

I also didn't say anything about pro/antisocial people... different person.

The generalization only works if it's weak enough to be meaningless. Thus, the generalization is bad. Examples don't make it useful.

"People act to their own benefit" is an empty generalization that adds no useful information by itself and free of context like that only serves to mislead people. It's only true if "benefit" is explicitly undefined, and only useful if you contextualize it to an specific action and benefit that you can empirically determine it's validity, like in the article.

> I also didn't say anything about pro/antisocial people

The article, and the entire discussion is about pro/antisocial behavior.

I didn't propose it, just clarified what I believe to be their point.

I think it is a useful generalization when you possess a theory of mind, however. In low-trust environments, assuming criminal self-interest is often what keeps people safe... if you're basing your decision on a lack of information, wariness is warranted. Not every social environment is a conversational environment.

[delayed]

Sure, but then the interesting question becomes how people decide whether or not an action is in their self-interest.