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This thread was inspired by the many sentiments I've been hearing lately about computer businesses--such as Apple and Microsoft--"caring only about themselves." A Linux-user friend of mine talked about a Linux/Unix convention he went to and how he was just amazed by this one man there who ran some computer business or other, but was not in it for the money. He was just out to "support himself and his family," and make nothing more. He hailed this man's objective as great, and said that anyone who could not appreciate it was "thinking in conventional, selfish terms." I read here on these forums in some thread or other about how "if Apple, MS, AMD, and Intel's goals were not ultimately money, if they would all just collaborate, the results would be amazing. " Then of course, you'll say to them, "The way the world is, any company whose goal is not to make money will fail." Then they inevitably respond something along the lines of, "But if EVERYONE did it, then we would all be great! The world is flawed." and leave it at that. What I'm driving at, which I have never been able to get out of any of these people is: By what standard is this mentality GOOD? By what standard is selfishness wrong? Now, you could answer this right here and now and say, "by God's standard," and that would be it, because the existence of a creator that made everything imposes its own objective standard of good on all of its created. But for now, I'm setting God aside, because almost every single person I've ever heard espouse such mentalities does not believe in God. So I ask again: good? By what standard?