The person who'd use your $1,000 suit as a floor rag

Some people would happily wreck your $1,000 suit to mop up a spill, because the small amount of utility it beats the hurt it causes you. Writing on the blog Atoms vs Bits, Uri uses that as the bottom of a scale — how much weight a person gives your wellbeing next to their own. 

There are people who seemingly care ~0 about your wellbeing, only their own; they would happily steal your $1000 suit to use as a floor rag, because the 0.1 units of value they get from that is worth more to them than the 1000 units of value you lose by losing it.

There are other people who are too self-sacrificing: you ask if they have a kleenex and they give you their silk tie. I'm not sure why but this is also very bothersome, to me at least.

The ratio Uri likes best is 1:1 — someone who gives your wellbeing the same weight as their own, and no more. Uri says this idea is just a hunch: "I'm totally speculating here," and, on the 1:1 ideal, "I'm not sure that's true."

Previously:
• Study reveals killer whales share food with humans in display of altruism
• Spite turns normal people into horse-paste-eating conspiracy addicts, says study