People are Generally Selfish

"I would like to emphasize the broadness of this subject and how difficult it may be to prove my argument, although in contrast I believe it would be even more so for this sentiment to be proved wrong." Negative proof fallacy. I cannot prove a negative, it is Pro's job as the instigator of a positive claim to satisfy the burden of proof. "Example: A man collapses on the street." "Naturally, a normal person will call an ambulance and seek assistance for this person in need." As defined in Round 1: selfish is defined as "nobody cares about anyone else pretty much man" and "its about caring about yourself and family" I am confused. Why would you help a man who collapsed on the street? If my opponent was selfish as defined above, his actions of helping the man does not appeal to the former or latter definition. "In time of crisis people generally band together" Why would this event be a crisis, if you did not care for the man? "Yes, you don't want to see someone in pain or suffering so you help that person, but does that necessarily mean that you care for that person's (a complete stranger) well being or are you just reacting to your natural instincts?" Again, if you did not care about the person, why would you care if he was suffering? Why would you want to help him? Also, if our natural instincts were to help each other, it would mean that we are naturally altruistic, and therefore not generally selfish. This argument only helps con's case. "I don't want to see that person die, but at the same time I have no affiliation with that person, he is no more than a stranger to me I do not have any real emotions towards his death. Does that make me a selfish person? According to my opponent, yes. This was a factor in my opponents debate." First, my problem is not that my opponent feels no emotions towards another's death. This debate is focused on the resolution: People are generally selfish ("nobody cares about anyone else pretty much man" and "its about caring about yourself and family"). I will illustrate why the resolution is wrong, later on. Excerpt from our private chat: PRO: do you care about my neighbor if he gets murdered? CON: of course i do PRO: lol PRO: no you dont CON: someone innocent was killed, do i cry about it? PRO: yea but it doesnt effect you at all CON:nah but i feel genuninely sry for them CON:so what?? CON:i don't get effected CON: therefore i don't care? "My opponent labeled me a selfish person because I would not be affected by a strangers death. If that is all it takes for me to be "selfish", then the majority of the world is just as guilty." False, I have labeled by opponent selfish because of this very quote "nobody cares about anyone else pretty much man" and "its about caring about yourself and family". If you read the excerpt, you will see that I do not label him selfish in the interchange at all. "If the majority of people did genuinely care for each other, why is there as much crime as there is now?" My opponent is arguing that because there are criminals, most people don't care about one another. It seems as if he believes that criminals represent the majority of society. I don't see the need to address this further. "A big testament my notion is poverty and starvation. I'm curious to see how my opponent can argue these statistics." "How can my opponent argue against this ?" First, I agree that those facts are true (Erased due to character limit). "Does this not seem to support my claim?" No, it doesn't. My opponent's argument can be summed up as such, A: Poverty is prevalent. B: Therefore, people are generally selfish. The transition from A to B is a non-sequitur. Poverty is prevalent, but that does not necessarily mean that people do not care about the children, who starve to death. Let me illustrate a simple analogy, just because I am busy studying for a college exam and is unable to help my younger brother's homework, does not mean that I do not care about my younger brother's homework. Secondly, the cause of poverty isn't due to lack of interest and care. Let us look at another analogy. The desert is dry, the ocean is moist. In effort to make this moisture-deprived desert moist, we take tons of water from the ocean and splash them into the desert. Temporally, the desert will be moist, however, as time passes the moisture condenses and the desert is dry once more. This analogy appeals to aid given by charities to the poor. It temporarily alleviates the problem, but it does not solve it. The lack of interest and selfishness is not the root of poverty. "The basis of my argument revolves around my belief that the majority of people care solely about the well being of themselves and the ones they love." It is true that we care about ourselves and our loved ones, however, why is it that we solely (only) care about them? "It is natural instinct, even for animals in the wild to protect their families." "…in which an animal sacrifices its own well-being for the benefit of another animal."[1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [1] :: Empathy :: Pro claims that, "While there may be people out there that genuinely have an interest in helping others and trying to make this world a better place, they are vastly outnumbered by the people that simply couldn't care less." I challenge this claim. Let us look around at tragedies of the world such as the holocaust, 9/11, the earthquake in Haiti, the hurricanes, and etc. Why is it that we pay our respects to the victims and feel empathy towards them? If people generally appealed to "nobody cares about anyone else pretty much man" and "its about caring about yourself and family", then why do we even acknowledge these tragedies? If no one cared, why are these events mentioned, brought up, and sensitive? We do generally care for others, and this "care" is not limited to family, or even people for that matter. Let us look at slavery. If all we cared about was ourselves, then why did we bother abolishing slavery? If we did not care for others, why would we care enough to free the slaves? This is true on a universal level. http://en.wikipedia.org... A glance at history tells us that we do indeed care for our fellow men. :: Sheer amount of money donated :: While the sheer amount of money donated doesn't prove that people care for one another, I do believe it supports the claim. http://nccsdataweb.urban.org... The link leads to the number of U.S. charities and how much each faction donated. I urge Pro and the audience to click on a few organizations and skim through the total amount. :: Religions :: "Most, if not all, of the world's religions promote altruism as a very important moral value. Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and Sikhism, etc., place particular emphasis on altruistic morality." [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] Easily, more than half of the world population fall under the above listed religions. These religions teach altruism, such as "love thy neighbor". Though the chart is an approximate estimate, 74% of the world appeals to altruistic morality. Add on to that percentage of altruistic atheists and we raise the 74% even higher. [4] http://www.adherents.com... [4] That said, it is more likely that people are not generally selfish. Resolution negated.