Who says the Christmas spirit doesn't exist?

[pErvinalia]

Bah Humbug!

[Seth]

It wasn't for nothing. They did it for positive advertising for the company so that they could make more profits.

Ie: "Good will towards men." Almost everyone gives charity with some personal ulterior motive in mind. So what? The only thing that's important is whether their charity assists the person in need, not their motives for doing so. The airline gave the gifts without demanding compensation of anyone, therefore they gave the passengers something for nothing. Merely having a hope of future reward from OTHER people is not a realized monetary gain unless and until it actually produces that income.

[JimC]

Gin exists...

[PsychoSerenity]

Almost everyone gives charity with some personal ulterior motive in mind.

No, I don't think they do.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Gin exists...

This is true - a holy spirit if I ever saw one!

[Seth]

Almost everyone gives charity with some personal ulterior motive in mind.

No, I don't think they do.

Yes, they do, even if it's just a feeling of satisfaction at helping another. Very few are the people who do charitable things without any personal motive.

It's not a bad thing, it's just how we are made.

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, Seth is right. I don't think there's any such thing as pure altruism. Although, it's pretty hard to quantify these things in the context of "the mind" and "free will" etc. But there's certainly a big difference in motives. Giving to charity out of some sort of sympathy/empathy reasons (and the resulting feel good sensation you get after that) is way different from performing "charity" because you want to make more money. One is a very basic human emotion, the other is a form of legalised greed. Two very different things.

[JimC]

Yeah, Seth is right. I don't think there's any such thing as pure altruism. Although, it's pretty hard to quantify these things in the context of psychology. But there's certainly a big difference in motives. Giving to charity out of some sort of sympathy/empathy reasons (and the resulting feel good sensation you get after that) is way different from performing "charity" because you want to make more money. One is a very basic human emotion, the other is a form of legalised greed. Two very different things.

Agreed, rEv. Another motive, not quite as venal as making more money, is enhancing other people's opinions of you, i.e. getting them to see you as a nice person because you give to others. Humans are frequently looking for ways to enhance their social status...

[Seth]

Yeah, Seth is right. I don't think there's any such thing as pure altruism. Although, it's pretty hard to quantify these things in the context of "the mind" and "free will" etc. But there's certainly a big difference in motives. Giving to charity out of some sort of sympathy/empathy reasons (and the resulting feel good sensation you get after that) is way different from performing "charity" because you want to make more money. One is a very basic human emotion, the other is a form of legalised greed. Two very different things.

Not really. If Bill Gates donates 40 million dollars to a charitable cause and doing so earns him another 50 million dollars that's 50 more millions of dollars he has at his disposal to be charitable with, and the beneficiaries of the 40 million benefit regardless of either his motives or his eventual profits.

Charity is charity. You just bloviate because you don't like the idea that a corporation might make more money on the back end. You don't give a fuck what it does to benefit the people who received the gifts. We like to call that "dog in the manger" behavior, which is very typical of the clinically deranged personalities of socialists.

[Seth]

Yeah, Seth is right. I don't think there's any such thing as pure altruism. Although, it's pretty hard to quantify these things in the context of psychology. But there's certainly a big difference in motives. Giving to charity out of some sort of sympathy/empathy reasons (and the resulting feel good sensation you get after that) is way different from performing "charity" because you want to make more money. One is a very basic human emotion, the other is a form of legalised greed. Two very different things.

Agreed, rEv. Another motive, not quite as venal as making more money, is enhancing other people's opinions of you, i.e. getting them to see you as a nice person because you give to others. Humans are frequently looking for ways to enhance their social status...

And what does that matter to the person who receives the charity?

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, Seth is right. I don't think there's any such thing as pure altruism. Although, it's pretty hard to quantify these things in the context of "the mind" and "free will" etc. But there's certainly a big difference in motives. Giving to charity out of some sort of sympathy/empathy reasons (and the resulting feel good sensation you get after that) is way different from performing "charity" because you want to make more money. One is a very basic human emotion, the other is a form of legalised greed. Two very different things.

Not really. If Bill Gates donates 40 million dollars to a charitable cause and doing so earns him another 50 million dollars that's 50 more millions of dollars he has at his disposal to be charitable with, and the beneficiaries of the 40 million benefit regardless of either his motives or his eventual profits.

Charity is charity. You just bloviate because you don't like the idea that a corporation might make more money on the back end. You don't give a fuck what it does to benefit the people who received the gifts. We like to call that "dog in the manger" behavior, which is very typical of the clinically deranged personalities of socialists.

All I'm doing is pointing out that the two scenarios aren't equivalent. They are to the recipient, but don't try and push the false narrative that corporations give a fuck about anything other than the bottom line.

[JimC]

Yeah, Seth is right. I don't think there's any such thing as pure altruism. Although, it's pretty hard to quantify these things in the context of psychology. But there's certainly a big difference in motives. Giving to charity out of some sort of sympathy/empathy reasons (and the resulting feel good sensation you get after that) is way different from performing "charity" because you want to make more money. One is a very basic human emotion, the other is a form of legalised greed. Two very different things.

Agreed, rEv. Another motive, not quite as venal as making more money, is enhancing other people's opinions of you, i.e. getting them to see you as a nice person because you give to others. Humans are frequently looking for ways to enhance their social status...

And what does that matter to the person who receives the charity?

Perhaps nothing, but that wasn't my point. I was simply demonstrating the variety of motives that exist when giving to others.

[Clinton Huxley]

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons?"

[PsychoSerenity]

Almost everyone gives charity with some personal ulterior motive in mind.

No, I don't think they do.

Yes, they do, even if it's just a feeling of satisfaction at helping another. Very few are the people who do charitable things without any personal motive.

It's not a bad thing, it's just how we are made.

Helping people in need because of a sense of empathy and compassion is not an ulterior motive. It's just a motive. It's pretty much the definition of charity. The only way you could help people without a motive is accidentally, which isn't charity.

It's only an ulterior motive when you're doing it for other reasons i.e. profit and advertising. Only giving people things while filming it specifically to try and convince everyone how generous you are, is not charity.

The other reason this stunt was not charity is because they put no effort into actually helping people in need. They only gave these presents to a random selection of their own customers. It really wouldn't have been hard to find a group of people more in need than their own airline passengers. And who paid for it anyway? Their other customers through ticket prices. What they effectively did was put their customers into a lottery without telling them about it. And even within the people who were on the winning flight, the cult of materialism is prioritised over any inclination to actually help those most in need. People who have more to begin with will inevitably aspire to greater things, so simply giving people what they want will usually disproportionately help those who already have the most. I'd say it's highly probable that the guy saying he needed new socks was more in need of help than those saying they wanted a massive TV. But what did they get?

So they didn't help people in need, and they didn't do it out of a sense of empathy and compassion. Like I said before, this was not charity in any sense of the word.

[pErvinalia]

But corporations are awesome, man.