A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism
A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism on HackerTube: recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 5 separate months, 2018–2025.
Kurzgesagt makes a selfish case for improving the world, arguing that helping people far away raises prosperity and innovation for everyone, including yourself. The animated video frames this as egoistic altruism and positive-sum cooperation.
What HN commenters said
8 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
axolotlgodMay 2022Strongly recommends
There is a video [0] I love that explains an argument for this well. The more people you have participating and iterating in a field, and more generally in life, the better that field/life ultimately becomes. Allowing more women in the video game field will ultimately make more satisfying and novel games for you and for everyone else. Modern video games are interactive art. People have emotional experiences from finishing games with stories and performances that speak to them. Part of this emotion comes from a deep understanding of the "lived experience" of people. There are parts of the lived experience that drastically differ for women and men, on the whole. Does that mean that men couldn't write a story that women find powerful and challenging? Of course not. But men aren't going to fully grok the little details of how society treats women, which means a lot of relevant themes relevant go unexplored if there aren't women on creative teams. Diversity of experience translates into diversity of ideas. Hell, I always thought that was a strength for FOSS, after all. --- [0]: ▶ this video - Kurzgesagt
in “Finding Van Tran, who brought female representation to games” · View on HN
shagieJan 2022Recommends
I'm quite fond of the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt which has deep videos that are targeted at a "you don't need to be an expert in the subject to understand." There's a video on this subject - Can YOU Fix Climate Change? [link] You may also like A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism ▶ this video
in “Bitcoin consumed 134 TWh in total during 2021” · View on HN
babyDec 2018Recommends
I think a lot of people (including me) want China to join the club of first world countries, not just economically, but also in terms of respect of human rights. How do you get there? By banning chinese products and heavily penalizing them? Or by inviting them to get their people richer and more educated? There's actually a very interesting kurzgesagt video on the subject: ▶ this video
in “Huawei Could Divide the World” · View on HN
arikrAug 2018Recommends
If you like this you may also like: - "Egoistic altruism" video by Kurzgesagt ▶ this video , supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. - Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen. Presents an argument for how contributing to positive sum economic growth is one of the best things you can do for humanity in the medium-to-long-run.
in “The 3 Tenets of Capitalism” · View on HN
arikrMay 2018Recommends
This is amazing! I'm very excited for a future where more and more tasks can be automated, enabling humans to get higher and higher living standards with the same/fewer input resources. In short, technology is a wonderful thing that allows very low marginal costs. This is what we need to make the future a better place, given a consistent or growing population. "Technology is miraculous because it allows us to do more with less. " This is a perfect demonstration of that. See also: ▶ this video "A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism"
in “Google Duplex: An AI System for Accomplishing Real World Tasks Over the Phone” · View on HN
braiampMar 2025Cites it
> the other countries become less able to trade on good terms, and thus less able to buy US products/services There is a Kurzgezat video a couple of years back [1] that does understand this. They did the same argument that you are making here. Heck, the prisoners dilemma is about how cooperating is the most viable strategy for global benefits. The world isn't really a zero sum game. We get a tons of energy thanks to our star that is usually the thing that most closed systems desperately look for. [1]: ▶ this video
in “The Demoralization is just Beginning” · View on HN
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FredPretOct 2021Cites it
Fair point. In defense of my moral model, it's backed up by this idea: are things perfect? No. Is the system working? Yes, and astonishingly well. Is there a better way to get from here to there, where "there" is some improved state of prosperity and development? No. Human nature is what it is, and our systems must exploit our nature rather than combat it. It's all based on measurable positive outcomes, rather than some theoretical idea that being eye-wateringly rich is somehow bad - morally bad, or bad for society. That idea is rooted in the old, pre-growth, pre-industrial paradigm, when all wealth was seized by force in some way. Today, some wealth is from violence, but the overwhelming majority is new money that was created out of nothing but good old human intelligence. Here are some references backing up my idea that the system works. Here's one focusing on the most important metric, human development: [link] This one is from the World Bank. You have to go into the metrics and countries. There are metrics that aren't of interest here, but some are, like access to clean cooking fuels, or electricity. But it's easy to see that most of it is pointing in the right direction. [link] Here's a book about all the things that ordinarily fuel existential pessimism: [link] Here's a book about how innovation progresses exponentially, and what it means for the masses: [link] Here's that classic video by Hans Rosling giving us some perspective on the progress over the last century: [L
in “You Are Jeff Bezos” · View on HN
zamalekMay 2018Cites it
> I wonder why they suddenly care? You would think it a silly idea: educating people into certifications that overqualify them and likely lead to their exit to greener pastures. There is the other end of the pipe to consider: students leaving high school would see Walmart employment as a way to afford their education - providing an everlasting stream of new employees. In addition, Walmart relies on successful innovators to stock their shelves with compelling products. This is selfish positive sum reasoning[1], where doing good ironically results in more for you. That's my best guess, at least. [1]: ▶ this video
in “Walmart will begin offering to subsidize college tuition for its U.S. workers” · View on HN