Poll: The Nature of People

[Jenny]

This is a poll based on your own personal experience.  In your opinion, do you view people as generally good or generally bad? In other words, do you think most people are good people with a few jerks thrown into the mix or that most people are jerks with a few good people thrown into the mix?

[Vera]

Generally selfish.

I'd like to - and usually do - believe that people are mostly good... but reality often gets in the way. Still leaning more towards good though.

Can I still have a brownie though? Or a doughnut?

[Jenny]

I'd like to - and usually do - believe that people are mostly good... but reality often gets in the way. Still leaning more towards good though.

Can I still have a brownie though? Or a doughnut?

I feel this way too.  And yes, brownies and doughnuts for all! 

[Szuchow]

I think that people are mostly indifferent about feeling of others.  Rarely I met actively malicious people, but I have similar troubles with recalling meeting humans who would help without expecting something in return.

But were I to cast net wider then I would name mankind wicked. Genocides, wars, mass starvation, imperialism, terrorism, oppression... List goes on and even now crimes unspeakable are commited and world just watch.

[julep]

Within one's "tribe," however that's defined, more people are (fairly) good to one another.  This doesn't make them good or bad people; it makes them socially acceptable and helps them gain resources.  It's hard for me to call that behavior good or evil.  Those same people who treat one another with consideration and care can be brutal to people outside the tribe.  

My personal experiences and my attempts at self-understanding lead me to think most people have jerky and kindly tendencies.  A big challenge to figure out how to structure societies that encourage kindly tendencies while keeping the competitive edge of the jerky...I'm not sure humanity's ever going to achieve it.

[Alan V]

Since we are all born jerks, it would seem to follow that only a few people learn enough to escape this natural state.

(I thought most people were naturally good when I was younger, but was disappointed by both them and myself.)

[no one]

Humans are just plain awful creatures. They are shit bag coated shit bags with shit bag filling.

[Dancefortwo]

Humans are just plain awful creatures. They are shit bag coated shit bags with shit bag filling.

So I take it  you went for the Brownie vote then?    

[brewerb]

You need to stop making threads about me.

[Marozz]

Humans are just plain awful creatures. They are shit bag coated shit bags with shit bag filling.

No shit.

[Dancefortwo]

I think it depends on the situation.  Sometimes people are jerks and sometimes they're generous and caring. I was driving down the freeway a few weeks ago and traffic stopped while a momma duck and her baby ducklings crossed the freeway and a guy got out of his car and put the duck and the babies over the concrete barrier out of harms way.  I got all teary eyed watching this happen.  

But then sometimes our tribal and territorial nature surges up out of the deep dark past and we try to annihilate each other in the most creative ways possible  We are an upright, two legged animal with an wow brain that we use  for both good and bad.  A bit of a paraphrase of Charles Dickens....we are the best of times, we are the worst of times.

[no one]

Talking dogs are cool, brewer. I mean, they're dogs, and they talk. What's cooler than that?

[no one]

No, Marroz. There's plenty of shit. 7 billion plus shits, and all their stains.

[Marozz]

I would tend to think most people are good with a few gobshites in the mx. Though a minority, they manage to fuck things up for everybody else.

[Fireball]

I think most people are generally "not bad"- maybe indifferent to other's welfare might be a good way to put it. I've always been very competitive. But I treated it as a game and didn't step on people. Maybe I should've been less of a nice player and more of a jerk. I might have gotten promoted faster at work. Then again, I didn't want to be a four-door brass-plated shit-wagon, as I wanted to be able to live with myself. In spite of all the maltreatment, I retired before many of my "peers". I'd like a brownie, now! 

[no one]

I went for option 4, Dance.

[no one]

Persons are tolerable. People, are terrible

[GenesisNemesis]

I would not be so arrogant as to presume what most people are. 

[c172]

Yeah, I have no clue about people (though the strangers I meet seem to want to help for their own good, not mine).

I do like sweets and other comfort food, so bring forward your favorite nutless brownie recipes.

(Maybe that's a worthy thread of its own)

[jerryg]

I'm fairly confident people are bad. They just enjoy hurting other people too much.

I don't know if anyone saw the Kanye and Letterman interview on Netflix, but he said something that really summed it up. He was talking about mental health, and how it reaches the point where it's like a sprained brain. And he says how when you have a sprained ankle, nobody pushes you more on that ankle. But with a sprained brain, people do everything they can to make it worse.

It was a really insightful observation on the way the mob sees a crack or weakness in a person and tries to break them.

A good example of that here, for those coming over from the other forum, is the treatment of MysticKnight. It was brutal and cruel and certainly not the behavior of good people.

--

On good deeds, I think people may do nice things that cost them nothing. My town is affluent and liberal. Gay rights, trans rights, civil rights, etc... Obama for a 3rd term. Until the school board floats the idea of poor kids coming to their schools, or their kids going to a school that isn't in their affluent neighborhood. Then they essentially become pro-segregation.

A rich person may donate a million dollars, but it's not one of their last millions. It's the extra million after they bought the 4 houses.

[Alan V]

I would not be so arrogant as to presume what most people are. 

So you interpret the question to mean people as intentionally jerks, and not just hopeless cases?  (After all, we all have a good idea what it is like to be human.)

[Dānu]

I'll have to read the poll and reread the OP before giving a serious answer. I think, off the top of my head, though, that while people are generally decent, your typical decent person has sufficient range in what he or she is capable of that you have a lot of ordinarily generally decent people stooping to horrendous and terrible behavior often enough to give humanity as a whole a black eye. I suspect the number of truly bad people, not the decent ones who fell, is rather small. Generally speaking, by design, we incline toward the good while being constantly tempted by the bad. The only real invariant that really matters is whether over time the balance on average is getting better, instead of worse or staying the same. I think over the past 10,000 years it has, and that it has is fairly well supported. Given that, I have plenty of optimism that we as a species will continue to improve on that score.

[GenesisNemesis]

I would not be so arrogant as to presume what most people are. 

So you interpret the question to mean people as intentionally jerks, and not just hopeless cases?  (After all, we all have a good idea what it is like to be human.)

Well it seems usually best to avoid confirmation bias when possible and making sweeping generalizations about "most people" will just increase our confirmation bias.

[Alan V]

I would not be so arrogant as to presume what most people are. 

So you interpret the question to mean people as intentionally jerks, and not just hopeless cases?  (After all, we all have a good idea what it is like to be human.)

Well it seems usually best to avoid confirmation bias when possible and making sweeping generalizations about "most people" will just increase our confirmation bias.

So yes, you see the question is about people being intentional jerks.  I considered the question more about how we humans are naturally, because of our limitations -- which we all might wish to escape if we could.  A certain amount of critical self-awareness can be generalized, because people aren't all that different.

[GenesisNemesis]

So you interpret the question to mean people as intentionally jerks, and not just hopeless cases?  (After all, we all have a good idea what it is like to be human.)

Well it seems usually best to avoid confirmation bias when possible and making sweeping generalizations about "most people" will just increase our confirmation bias.

So yes, you see the question is about people being intentional jerks.  I considered the question more about how we humans are naturally, because of our limitations -- which we all might wish to escape if we could.  A certain amount of critical self-awareness can be generalized, because people aren't all that different.

You could say most people are incompetent with dealing with the reality of climate change for example, I suppose. 

Or that they're they're incompetent with dealing with reality in general.