system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: At the heart of it, people are only nice to get what they want.

After reading Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene" the message that most of our 'altruistic' behaviour is actually just a subconscious tactic to maximize the chances of our genes getting passed on, whether it's before we mate in order to mate or to allow our children to prosper. I guess there are moments of 'true' altruism, say when a guy unrelated to someone else (genetically or friendship) jumps in front of a car to push them out of the way. I'm not a misanthrope and I believe a lot of people go out of their way to be good people by their own standards and I guess I can't expect people to go against genetic imperatives, being too nice will reduce your chances of passing on your genes etc. This whole question sounds obvious when I think about it. I'm just trying to examine motivations and maybe someone can change my view.

edit: ∆ awarded. I still think people are nice to get what they want, but it's more pre-programmed than I understood and as one user said people would have to behave 100% irrationally to fit my definition of true altruism.
gpt
People aren't nice to get what they want. They are nice because their instincts, honed over thousands of years of natural selection, has made them that way. Saying it's to get what they want implies they choose to be nice, as opposed to being hardwired to be nice because of their basic biology. 

The most unique and highly developed parts of the brain are all related to communication. Some of the largest chunks of the brain (in terms of physical size) are devoted to speech production, hearing and language comprehension, facial expression, etc. In every sense of the word, humans are social animals. Saying people choose to be nice to get what they want is like saying a calculator chooses to add numbers to get what it wants. Being nice is part of our basic programming.