well what it did is found that conservatives tend to be wealthier, because they’re more likely to take steps that make them wealthy at the detriment of others, and their community. Being wealthier, they have better access to health care and live longer, which means that older people tend to be more conservatives because poor people die younger. Not because getting older makes people more conservative.

I wish I still had the link, it’s way in the rear view back on zombie reddit.

As for the “everyone is without exception self interested” thing, that’s seems like a bit of pedantry because it’s not so much that liberals aren’t self interested it’s that self interest isn’t their primary motivation where in conservatives self interest is really all they’re interested in (they call it “me and mine”). one sees the world as collaborative, while the other sees the world as a socially Darwinistic competition. Which it isn’t.

The idea that “ you don’t really truly do anything for others, ever, but if someone convinced you that if you don’t do good by others, then you should be ashamed or that if you do, you’re a better person, then you do good for others for your own sake, to view yourself in a better light.” is false. It’s a very convenient falsehood because it justifies just about any form of behavior. Typically when someone makes a broad statement about something “everyone” believes all they’re really saying is that that is what THEY believe it, and that they can’t imagine how anyone could ever think about things differently.