This question has always bugged me, ever since I heard the insult of "contributing nothing to society". I don't think that we are. If someone chooses to not help or hurt their fellow man, who are we to say anything?
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We require society in order to survive, so we require society to survive. Whether helping others should be defined as contributing to society depends on how you define society, and how that person fits into it. Really, I think these should be classified as two different questions.