How to get people selfish enough to share?\u00a0 \u00a0Maybe this was what Adam Smith was trying to get at with the “Invisible Hand” Maybe he was trying to say was that if everyone did what was best for themselves everything for everyone would work out for the best.\u00a0 However, Adam Smith wasn’t really clear on the time frame. If we are always doing what seems best for me now I may be sacrificing what is best for me in the future. Here is an example, if I do what seems best for me now buying a car because I need to get to work, but I cannot save money because of the car payment.\u00a0 Then when I get older I don’t have enough money to retire and die younger because I have to continue to work.<\/p>\n
In the United States, we want the opportunity to make stupid short-term choices the feed our greed now and we also want to be free from the long-term\u00a0consequences of our poor short-term selfish choices.<\/p>\n
I digress, it will always be able to assess the problems.\u00a0 The question here is how do we change the world into making the choices that will reap the best possible life not only short-term but long-term.<\/p>\n
This is where I\/we need to focus the effort.<\/p>\n
Without going into detail, as I look back on my life, I have often taken the easier short-term selfish approach to my decisions.\u00a0 I am paying for it now with less freedom than I have ever had.\u00a0 I look back and many times I thought the choices I was making were good for the long-term.\u00a0 Unfortunately, they have been bad for the long-term.<\/p>\n
It’s like saying.\u00a0 I’m hungry I will eat, but then I eat too much. Now I am overweight, and I spend a lot of time exercising to lose the weight.\u00a0 But the weight is not coming off.\u00a0 I need to either stop eating so much or change what I eat.\u00a0 My short-term choices are keeping me from the long-term freedom\/consequences I want.<\/p>\n
However, there was a time where I wasn’t eating enough in college and my testing suffered because I could not remember things well because I was malnourished in an effort to stay thin.\u00a0 How can we find and maintain the balance?<\/p>\n
If you are tired of reading stop here<\/strong>.\u00a0 I am going to go into some theory after this which isn’t going to solve the problem but will give some better insights into what others have explored.<\/p>\n
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