Is it more important to help yourself, help your family, help your society, or help the world?

You must first take care of yourself so you are ready to help others. You can be selfish and think only of yourself of course. But if you are your best person you are in the best spot to help others. So for example if you get educated you have the money and free time to volunteer.

At the same time a person must also know when they can not come first. For example giving a vaccine in short supply to the elderly or children first. People who are more likely to die from sickness.

 

No

 

I think he means that helping anyone (including oneself) is less important than NOT helping anyone. Not sure yet what that's supposed to mean.

 

Well, maybe it's the epitome of laziness.

 

Yes

 

universal rights are universally important, but even more fundamental then that,
is that without an environment that supports our existence, there's no us,
and with no us, all other questions become no more then theoretical.

i like friends, i like affection,
but with no place for any living creature to live on this earth,
i'm sorry but that really has to come furst.

its not some fanciful mind exercise, its the most important issue our species has ever faced.
and it has a solution that is relatively simple and completely available, just not universally popular,
and of course anathema to those who live by short sighted greed.

reduce human fertility right off, because that is the multiplier of all other detrimental factors,
and then stop worshiping the automobile. replace it everywhere possible,
and that's a lot more places then our current cultural perspective imagines,
with energy efficient means of public transportation propelled by clean sources of energy.

culturally we need to stop hating logic, consideration, honesty and imagination.
those are the big four that can turn a hell into a heaven when loved,
and a heaven into a hell when hated.

evil isn't a side, it is a form of behavior.
goodness and the desire to be feared are absolute binary opposites.

sorry to rant, but love of country and family are always cited as excuses for opposing
what is logically and obviously necessary for the future of our species
and of life on this planet.

 

I agree that we do.
but why do you think that is?
i don't understand it and I've thought about it a while.

 

It all depends on your situation. Like, if you were a heroin addict, I'd say, "Help yourself first." But if you're a billionaire, I'd say, "Help somebody else."

 

I help the world by being this sexy.

 

the thing about how you treat everything that surrounds you, is that however you do, however it responds to your doing so, you are still surrounded by it.
this isn't the kind of zero sum choice the question implies. you cannot rob peter to pay paul without all three of you being the poorer for it.

 

quite simply because it is the real root of needless suffering.

why is it there, this hatred of logic?
because some imagine it a source of personal gain, and some actually do accumulate, and imagine doing so to be gain,
by the hatred of logic by others,

so they teach others to teach each other to do so, even to raise their children to do so.

but there is no other source of it.
and the myth of it being a biological imperative of the species is simply that, a myth, however self fulfilling,
even to the potential doom entirely of the species.

 

Still help family. Done more than my share of helping other, which would never end. But need to help the world, to make sure there is a good place for future generations.

 

look after your goldfish/rabbit/dog/goat first.

 

Like most people who have replied, I think that it is all a sequence. of events.

 

the best 'help' is to cause the least harm! (and THAT takes logic, NOT the hating of it.)