Whether it's capitalism with a large dose of socialism of socialism or socialism with a large dose of capitalism, neither extreme seems to work as well as approaches that adopt portions of both.

> Most people are not little philosopher kings who work to advance a grand vision of life's unfolding in the universe. Most people just want to do the minimum to get by until they can get their next dose of entertainment. I hate to be such a cynic, but I have eyes.

I think the only people that actually work to advance understanding of the universe do so for selfish reasons, and we all just get to benefit from the byproduct of their self interest. If I had to guess whether Einstein of Newton did what they did because they wanted every human to be better of, or if it was primarily because that's what they enjoyed doing and they were lucky enough to be in circumstances that allowed them to live doing that (and become famous as well), I know where I'd place my bet.

It's the same for child rearing. There's a sense of happiness and contentment when your children are happy and safe (or at a minimum there's usually uneasiness and dread when your children are unhappy or unsafe), so you try to make that the situation the one that makes you the most comfortable happy. It's an instinctual and emotional response, but doesn't necessarily make sense from a purely rational self-interest point of view.

We aren't saints, we're machines with wacky firmware that imparts interesting and had to evaluate value functions.