Doing something purely out of altruism or for the sake of self-realization might possibly be “better” than doing it for some kind of credit. But I think we’d go far simply by making quality as visible as quantity, or more visible. Make sure that people who do good things get some visible brownie points, or at least that the things they do are very visible. And make sure that people who amass worthless followers get some minus quality points, or at least that the result of that action gets but little visibility.

Lots of people contribute to open source projects, to wikipedia, to support forums, etc. Maybe out of a kind of altruism, even if most probably wouldn’t identify themselves as altruists. Maybe to scratch their own itch, but they also go out of their way to share it. Maybe for recognition, but they often only get little visible recognition. Maybe just to know they’re doing something valuable, something that’s needed, something that makes the world a slightly better place.

One way or another, yes, I think it is moving towards the top of Maslow’s pyramid. And, yes, more services ought to deal with that more intelligently.

For me spending more time online, has made me spend more time offline (eg. not watching TV).

It’s amazing how many I now call friends, that I didn’t even know 4 years ago, when I reentered the online world, I think that is a rare pattern for people my age (47), that you make new friends, most of which are 10-15 years younger than yourself.

Maslow is right, and we really want to be famous/recognised.

But, I love your take on altruism, we do see a lot of potiential for that in the “loud” bubbles on twitter in Denmark, and I think that now that we’ve found each other, we will actually go on to change the world!

Altruism’r'us