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Parsimony doesn't preclude cleverness. It simply assumes the simplest explanation over the more contrived. The question is really about what's simple in this context, and what's contrived. Most coins are fair, so the simplest explanation of getting 2 heads in a row is that the coin is fair and that "chance" played out. However, if you flip a coin and get heads a million times in a row, then assuming that the coin is fair -- because "most" coins are -- is no longer the simplest explanation. The simplest explanation for a series of similar events then -- linked events -- is sometimes what we used to consider the contrived explanation (for that same event in isolation).
What I'm getting at is that there's a pattern of seemingly altruistic actions that have been taken here. In isolation, it would, perhaps, be easy to chalk it up as altruistic behavior. The other option, more contrived when applied to isolated acts, but more simple when a pattern emerges -- is that someone's merely using the idea of altruism in order to perform more sinister acts.
It's the oldest game in the book, pretend to be an altruist, get away with murder. Rand's quote about "Every major horror" having the exploitation of altruism in common brings this full-circle. The common-ness makes the explanation simpler than the one where we're supposed to believe that someone's truly an (un-clever) altruist.
Ed
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Here at home, our State Department is advising its officials to avoid perfectly descriptive terms for our enemies like "jihadist" and "Islamo-fascist" in favor of vague terms like "violent extremist" or "terrorist" -- as if we could just as easily be fighting Basque separatists.
