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To SFB:

While Lex's vote was not illegitimate, it was immoral because he wasn't an ethical egoist. He is not the only person. Any juror who can not justify their voting based on who played the better game, and votes based on spite or misguided and irrelevent moral principles, is voting incorrectly. They are chastizing the finalists for daring to play the game. I'll use a simple analogy:

Lets say Person X and Person Y are in the final 2. Person X got to the final 2
partly by exploiting Juror 1's naivety. Juror 1 expected Person X to make an alliance with him at the merge, which Person X never agreed to and would be irrational to accept. Juror 1 votes for Person Y because Person X was not willing to be blackmailed.

Based on the nature of how Tribal Council works, someone will always be the odd person out and politcially powerless every round. Since everyone is trying to win the game, everyone would prefer to have political power through whatever avenues they can apply themselves to. If some people were playing altruistic or in any other way but selfishly, they are inadvertently causing someone elses failure. So therefore, altruism is impossible in Survivor and an incorrect way of playing the game. This makes Lex incorrect and therefore immoral. It also makes people like Coach immoral for expecting people to live by principles that aren't honest.

The difficulty of the environment they live in has nothing to do with morality, and neither does the human need for comfort and mutual relationships. Being a rational egoist simply means that you recognize that you are only playing the game for yourself and not for anything else. It's a logical step forward, in a way akin to someone saying that taxation is theft or that evolution is an unavoidable truth of biology. You can still have healthy humanist relationships while still adhering to the logical course of the game. If everyone recognizes that it is only a game, and totally shut out from the rest of reality, than they will probably come to this realization earlier. Those people who say that you can not seperate the game from reality are simply incorrect because they contributed to the ruthless game whether they wanted to or not.

To Panurge46:

You are confusing ethical egoism with short term thinking. Everyone is an egoist in Survivor if they are interested in winning, whether they like it or not. Jenna was one as well, but not an ethical egoist, because of her irrational hatred of previous winners. She also did not plan the final stage of the game correctly, as she had to compete against people who were better than her in every competition. Maybe she had bad luck, maybe not. She was a good player perhaps on accident, because she could have beaten either Rob or Amber if they had flubbed, and maybe that was her plan all along.

What are you trying to say about nihilism? Assuming that you are criticizing me somehow, I can't make out any coherent idea or rebuttal. Please be clearer next time. What I was accusing SwineForkBeard of was the idea that nothing has any value in the game. If that were true, the show wouldn't even exist! Nothing would exist. Actually, I'm of the opinion that nihilism is a self contradicting philosophy.

Survivor is a lifeboat simulation. You can choose not to participate. If you do, you must recognize game theory and rational egoism.

panurge46 wrote:

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Go on babbling but this is only a stupid way of saying you wanted Morono to win ASS. You don't even make sense. In your example Y simply played a better game because he got as far as X without making an enemy. And not wanting to throw people overboard in a lifeboat does not mean you don't want to survive. Can't you see the difference?

About nihilism, read the definition again and you'll eventually figure it out. Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is the philosophical doctrine suggesting that values do not exist but rather are falsely invented...existential nihilism... argues that life is without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.
When you write:

"The difficulty of the environment they live in has nothing to do with morality, and neither does the human need for comfort and mutual relationships"

or about:

"irrelevent moral principles"

You are saying that human values have no place in Survivor and that relationships have no significance. That's a very nihilistic view. If you can't see that, you have a bigger problem than I thought. Seek help.

This isn't a case for Boston Rob, because I said at the very start that winners are already the best players by definition. I am saying that altrustic concepts are ultimately proven false in Survivor because it is impossible to have a desire to win and not exploit the other players. In the example, Person X played a rational egoist game and abided by the principles needed to win the game, just like Person Y did. Person Y is not the better player because he/she didn't make an enemy, they are a product of circumstance because presumably they did not play as offensive of a game as Person X. Notice that I never mentioned what the outcome of the voting was, or what the other jurors thought about the two finalists. I am assuming the other jurors are rational and will vote for X or Y based on egoist principles.

Yes, are you defending nihilism or are you against it?

When people comfort eachother, it is not altruistic. It is mutual. Mutual contracts such as sharing a blanket or forming an alliance are ways of advancing in the game. What's your point?