do you get upset when people lie about their motives?

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There was no goal, no planning , no reasoning beyond the realization of what the right thing to do at the moment was, no internal dialogue of what i want or don't want to do. There was nothing convenient about it either, in several instances it was very inconvenient to do the right thing.

I know it is a difficult concept for you to wrap your head around because that is not the way the overwhelming majority of NTs and indeed Aspies operate.

You also don't have to reason in the moment with internal dialog while riding a bike, but all of that was done ahead of time while you were first learning to ride the bike, with the end goal of not falling off. Repeating the behaviors without rethinking the goal does not negate the goal.
The brain allows you to skip those steps, but the goal is still the same.

Faulty analogy on many levels. Riding a bike is using procedural memory. There's nothing procedural about carrying out acts of kindness. Doing the right thing according to your moral code without thinking too much about it is what I'm talking about. Trying to retrofit some kind of selfish goal to it is tortuous and borders on the absurd.

Sometimes honesty can really hold you back and be a hindrance. It's simply not realistic to expect someone to always be 100% honest. I know I couldn't be; I'd simply be miserable.

There was no goal? You acted without having any idea whatsoever of what you wanted to achieve? That not only makes no sense, it suggests that what you did was not a random act of kindness. If you had no goal, then you weren't intending to be kind (being kind is a goal), and if kindness wasn't your intention, then whatever you did wasn't a RAOK.

I did not intend to 'achieve' something by being kind. Sure, you could call carrying out an act of kindness itself to be a goal but how the heck do you make the leap from there to claiming it as selfish?

Selfish = your actions were primarily motivated by your own interests

I like doing nice things for people. If that's selfish, so be it!! !! !

You are going in circles. My actions were not motivated by self-interest.

You are going in circles. My actions were not motivated by self-interest.[/quote]

How am I going in circles? You wanted to do what you did, didn't you? Therefore, it was in your self-interest to do it. Anything you want is part of your self-interest.

I find that dishonesty is a real big obstacle when trying to overcome autism.

We probably all know one of those people that act friendly in your face but laugh at you when you have your back turned. I'd rather just have them say it to my face.

I have to agree.
Almost all acts are procedural.
Flinching from a loud sound is not procedural.
The flinching is still selfish though because instinct is for self-preservation.

To me, bending over backwards to package something as "selfless" is absolutely absurd.
Generally, I think the people who think this way live in a reality of concepts, and have a lack of awareness of how their own minds operate.

So yes, an act either has a goal, or it was an accident, in which case it has nothing to do with kindness.

No and that's the whole point.



I'll make it a bit easier for you. My actions were instinctual not intentional.

Even as a young child I picked up on the fact that I would be told that I was selfish if I failed to either acknowledge or emulate a selfish act performed by an NT that had been re-packaged to look more selfless or kind.

Apparently most people really aren't bright enough to logically sort out what is really happening there, and just go along with the illusion.

Basically all involved are selfish, but it is only proper to call someone selfish if they fail to deceive or re-package the act properly to hide the selfishness.

To claim selflessness, or some particular level of selflessness directly serves social hierarchies.

It's eminently selfish if something is done only for one's self, hurts others, and doesn't benefit anybody else whatsoever.

It doesn't take an Einstein to deduce that.

If an action is done for self-interest, and it benefits others, I don't find that to be selfish. Obviously, it's not "full" altruism--but, frequently, altruistic intent is present.

What does selfishness serve? A person's ego? their identity? If one did not have an identity, could one still be selfish? To what end?