Power is not a means, it is an end.

I found the debate interesting as well. Here are some quick counter-arguments and my conclusions: 1. We might have the same primal desires, but we have observably different genetics and behavior, which along with instincts are the product of evolution. One result of our evolution is the capacity to reason, which has the capacity to subvert our primal instincts (for example, it seems illogical that one could make the conscious decision to not have children and still be driven primarily by the desire to procreate at the exact same time). 2. I agree that immortality or legacy can be a form of power, but kindness to a stranger is anonymous, and anonymous donation can largely be explained as attachment to a logical or moral ideal. Or it could be explained as a desire to improve the world around you, and this can sometimes compromise your own personal power. 3. Power for the species or collective can be a basic drive, but this can also run at odds with your own personal, individual power, and also ignores the existence of the self-destructive death impulse. 4. I agree that much theoretical knowledge has the potential to be applied, but I think many people like to enjoy knowledge for its own sake, while consciously aware they will never apply it. For example, someone might enjoy reading sci-fi novels, while perfectly aware that they will never write a sci-fi novel or become a scientist. 5. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, having your basic or fundamental needs met will result in greater levels of happiness (http://en.wikipedia.org...), so people with their fundamental or basic need power more satisfied should be statistically happier. My conclusions: I believe that I have demonstrated through various observable examples and rational analysis that human beings possess subjective, mutable, and varying motivations and interests, and therefore can't all be reduced to a single universal urge for power. This doesn't mean that man might usually desire power, but just that it is not always the case. I'd support my argument with these main points: 1. Man is had acquired through evolution the capacity to reason, which might at times run contrary to your original instincts (for example, contrary to the urge for violence or procreation). The existence of any new traits through mutated or evolved genetics would seem to indicate diversity among human drives. 2. Attachment to a moral or logical ideal achieved through reason can supersede an attachment to personal, real power (I could be the perfect example this, as I might like see the total abolition of all forms and systems of power if for no other reason than it fulfills my aesthetic ideals). 3. The urge for power does not explain why the Freudian death impulse can be observed to exist, if thousands of years of self-destructive behavior by humanity is any indication. 4. Some people with greater levels of personal power have been observed to be less happy than others with less. 5. Dichotomous relationships between aggressor and non-aggressor observed in nature seem to support that the fundamental drives between different creatures equally interested in survival are not always the same. 6. My opponent agrees that the mentally ill are in some way "different" in motivation, which seems to illustrate the disparity in subjective human interests.