(I apologize for not responding sooner; I’ve just realized I’m in one of my periodic bouts of anhedonia and social procrastination.)
My short absence seems to have given enough time to get a selection of votes in, and since I’m just about to actually apply the results of this discussion to my fiction, it’s time to analyze the results.
I’m ruling out ‘rational self-interest’ as already being used to refer to a closely-related but not-quite-identical concept, so that I can have my characters discuss the differences.
First word:
effective: 6
rational: 6 (or 4)
strategic: 3
It looks like ‘rational’ or ‘effective’ beat out all the other suggestions fairly handily. This happens to line up with my own instincts, so I’m willing to take it as confirmation.
Second word:
self-interest: 5 (or 3)
egoism: 4
living: 2
self-care: 2
well-being: 1
And, again, it looks like we have two clear winners, with enough margin over the others to be confident they’re actually the most popular.
Checking the votes of the available combinations of those, though
effective self-interest: 3
effective egoism: 2
rational egoism: 1
… there isn’t quite as clear a preference for any one over any of the others. (As in, a single weird voter could have skewed the results.) But it looks like either ‘effective egoism’ or ‘effective self-interest’ is going to win out. … And, at least for fictional purposes, I think I’ll apply the Crazy Straws principle and simply have continuing arguments over which of the two terms should be applied in any given case.
Lets poll. Which do you think captures it best?
[pollid:1168]
Rational self-care
[+]
(I apologize for not responding sooner; I’ve just realized I’m in one of my periodic bouts of anhedonia and social procrastination.)
My short absence seems to have given enough time to get a selection of votes in, and since I’m just about to actually apply the results of this discussion to my fiction, it’s time to analyze the results.
I’m ruling out ‘rational self-interest’ as already being used to refer to a closely-related but not-quite-identical concept, so that I can have my characters discuss the differences.
First word:
effective: 6
rational: 6 (or 4)
strategic: 3
It looks like ‘rational’ or ‘effective’ beat out all the other suggestions fairly handily. This happens to line up with my own instincts, so I’m willing to take it as confirmation.
Second word:
self-interest: 5 (or 3)
egoism: 4
living: 2
self-care: 2
well-being: 1
And, again, it looks like we have two clear winners, with enough margin over the others to be confident they’re actually the most popular.
Checking the votes of the available combinations of those, though
effective self-interest: 3
effective egoism: 2
rational egoism: 1
… there isn’t quite as clear a preference for any one over any of the others. (As in, a single weird voter could have skewed the results.) But it looks like either ‘effective egoism’ or ‘effective self-interest’ is going to win out. … And, at least for fictional purposes, I think I’ll apply the Crazy Straws principle and simply have continuing arguments over which of the two terms should be applied in any given case.