On balance, human nature is more selfish than altruistic.

I completely understand you being swamped with work, I frequently give quicker, shorter answers when I have debates due during the school week, but this quarter I am taking only 12 units so I’ve some free time. Understanding that you are pressed for time, I will try to keep my arguments quick and to the point. REBUTTALS Though you speak of the impact of the sense of self-preservation on human behavior, I wish to refute this as a whole with the example: Humans as a race only have survived due to their reproductive habits. Having offspring is a complete withdrawal of priority of life going to the self, and instead places the priority of life on the child. We have seen this in the animal world where mothers defend their offspring with their life though they would have easily survived if they had but abandoned their offspring and fled. I concede that your example of starvation is very strong. In so, I wish to rationally break down the event as best as I can: A population is in a starvation period where it is guaranteed that many are likely to die. The population takes a conscious decision to fairly divide the supply of nutrients by rationing them to everyone. This in itself is a reason to believe that the population wished to act fairly and altruistically as a WHOLE. Here is a link to a population plot of Saint Petersburg; https://en.wikipedia.org... which shows the data based off of a few sources listed at the bottom, this being one of them; http://demoscope.ru... The population as shown by these sources would have been close to 3 million at the time. As a whole, the population was committing these acts of murder and cannibalism at about 1200 + 2000 = 3200 cases/6months, 3200 / 3,000,000 = ~0.001, so about one tenth of one percent of the population suffered the atrocities. This is minimal considering the circumstances, so I use this to prove that on balance, MORE of the population was altruistic than selfish. The recent hikes of necessary medication is a strong argument, but I will say that it only proves that the individuals involved in the hike are the selfish ones. The number of people involved compared to the number of people outraged and seeking justice are quite low, showing that more people want altruism, or at least fairness. ARGUMENTS AND EXAMPLES Obviously the example of parenthood is my first example. My next example is that altruism holds the “highest” form of happiness, that is, we receive the best internal reward from it. I would argue that this is a built-in response that is a necessary feature of all humans (compassion and empathy) of which has advanced us as a species. Altruism improves a person’s subjective well-being: "Altruistic (other-regarding) emotions and behaviors are associated with greater well-being, health, and longevity “ http://link.springer.com... “Much of this research shows that unselfish individuals will find life to be more meaningful, will usually be happier than their selfish counterparts, and will often experience better mental health” http://psycnet.apa.org... “Drawing on data from the USA, our estimates suggest that people who volunteer report better health and greater happiness than people who do not, a relationship that is not driven by socio-economic differences between volunteers and non-volunteers” http://www.sciencedirect.com... “Results provide striking empirical support for the Golden Rule in showing that selfish people were less likely to be happy than unselfish people” http://psycnet.apa.org... My personal anecdotal evidence is that I have not found myself to be in as much disarray in life that I one was after I had resolved to set my goals to be the advancement of the happiness and well-being of others. A life that lives merely for itself becomes meaningless as we tire from what hedonistically makes us happy. At that, I will leave you.