104 réponses à ce sujet

[Fast Jimmy]

Just dirty, I don't know why you had to drag birds into this.

You said turkeys!

[mousestalker]

To be serious:

I have met both great saints and great sinners. There are some people who are so casually good that they make it seem effortless. One man I know just makes the world better. I wish I knew his secret.

On the other hand I once interviewed a young man who casually killed and raped an elderly couple. His only regret was that he had been caught. How he became that way, soulless and malevolent, is a mystery.

Most of us are middling sorts.

[Seraphim24]

Oh....

 

so I did.

[ME_Fan]

I have hope. As small and infinitely insignificant as humans are as a place in the universe, I am still proud of our achievements, and of the goodness of humanity. Life may be an incidental part of the universe, but it is a rare one, and we are a unique people from a little planet called Earth that overcame incredible odds of evolution and fortune to become what we are today.

 

One day there will be no traces of us left in the universe, but I am proud to be alive in a world of such kindness and goodness. And although it will not last forever, we should all hold dear the amazing miracle that is human civilization, through the bad times, and the good ones.

[Jock Cranley]

If I had to pick between saying "Man is inherently Good" or "Man is inherently Bad", I'd pick the latter.

 

Let's be serious: people in general are willing to sacrifice others' well-being in order to promote their own well-being. Some are very formal and gentle about it, but the willingness remains.  For you to succeed, others must fail, and most do not hesitate to ensure others' failures.

 

If someone else is in your way, they are your enemy; know that they would share a similar perspective. You, regardless of your history, are currently an obstacle. An obstacle to be vaulted or to be destroyed.

 

Furthermore, all alliances are temporary. Most friends are only so in order to potentially achieve a short-term benefit; if the benefit is achieved or deemed impossible, they will see no further purpose for you spare another short-term cause.

[Isichar]

To be serious:I have met both great saints and great sinners. There are some people who are so casually good that they make it seem effortless. One man I know just makes the world better. I wish I knew his secret.On the other hand I once interviewed a young man who casually killed and raped an elderly couple. His only regret was that he had been caught. How he became that way, soulless and malevolent, is a mystery.Most of us are middling sorts.

This one understands

[DeathScepter]

To be serious:

I have met both great saints and great sinners. There are some people who are so casually good that they make it seem effortless. One man I know just makes the world better. I wish I knew his secret.

On the other hand I once interviewed a young man who casually killed and raped an elderly couple. His only regret was that he had been caught. How he became that way, soulless and malevolent, is a mystery.

Most of us are middling sorts.

 

 

Well to the second guy, he is a believable complete monster. yes tvtropers will know that complete monster is one of many tropes in that site. Complete Monsters are evil and they have voids where their hearts/conscience/any sense of morality used to be at and they have no good in them.

[Seraphim24]

Ugh I still don't enjoy any of these definitions of bad or evil or whatever.

 

Is it self-seeking and malicious to go get a bagel because you are hungry? Is it selfish to drink coca-cola when you could subsist on water?

 

I think a lot of people are inherently a lot crazier than they are letting on, whether it's controlling, greedy, reckless, whatever, but that isn't to say that's necessarily bad or wrong. The real enemy are the problems nature provides and how people react to them, rather than any inherent qualities within humanity. A more interesting question is how to harmonize these disparate forces for someone people agree on is making everyone happy.

[Inquisitor Recon]

Do you think human beings are inherently vile, self seeking and malevolent? 

To put it simply, yes. It is not hard to cross that line where we'd cut anybody's throat to get what we want. It just boils down to risk vs reward. The law and society is there to make that risk severe, to provide order beyond the strong killing the weak and taking their stuff. Society tries to say this is not the case based on that 1% of people or whatever that may be truly alturistic, tries to say it is good to help, but in the end it boils down to the threat and application of force to prevent a state of anarchy and enable some concept of morality. And despite what some idiot anarchists might think, anarchy is not desirable, nor is a lack of morals.

 

So Judge Dredd is pretty much the only reason we're not killing each other.

[Fast Jimmy]

Ugh I still don't enjoy any of these definitions of bad or evil or whatever.

Is it self-seeking and malicious to go get a bagel because you are hungry? Is it selfish to drink coca-cola when you could subsist on water?

I think a lot of people are inherently a lot crazier than they are letting on, whether it's controlling, greedy, reckless, whatever, but that isn't to say that's necessarily bad or wrong. The real enemy are the problems nature provides and how people react to them, rather than any inherent qualities within humanity. A more interesting question is how to harmonize these disparate forces for someone people agree on is making everyone happy.

Eh. Did nature weaponize AIDS with rebel forces raping 10 year old girls of competing ethnic groups to slread the disease? Did nature create the problem of one religious sect in Ireland to car bombing members of another religious sect (even though both religions openly admit to worshiping the same deity), killing civilians, women and children? Did nature make people with one skin color pigmentation attack, kill and oppress members of another skin pigmentation for literally no other reason than said pigmentation?

Limited resources and natural events do create tension between humans, no doubt. But instances of outright cruelty of the highest level that dehumanizes other people are rampant, in the past and present. There's plenty to lay at the feet of humanity, even if I think we're not a doomed, terrible species.

[Seraphim24]

Ok, but the original post specifically said "self-seeking" and then added vile and one other word, all were basically left undefined.

 

Several other posts talked about selfish, and then suddenly we're talking about guys that murdered and raped 10 people for pleasure or now about rape of 10 year old girls and blowing up of people.

 

There is a huge world of difference between these things, for starters being that selfish not really being inherently bad.

 

To be honest most instances of mass violence are committed by someone with a misguided notion of "selflessness" not selfishness.

 

Moreover most of the examples cited here recently are examples of acts that don't seem to have any conceivable purpose whatsoever, and thus couldn't possibly be self-seeking if they didn't serve any clear desirable goal.

 

Edit: I think people are just kind of giving their own instinctive reaction, and not necessarily describing their positions in relationship to one another or the original post, but it's spectacularly messy and incoherent to try and unify them at this stage is all.

 

Edit 2: And personally I think I could find almost as many examples as happier things going on, it's just obviously Northern Ireland and Africa aren't those places for the most part (although I'll bet that does happen).

[President of Boom]

I'll just leave this right here: http://youtu.be/IM1-DQ2Wo_w?t=1m6s

[TheClonesLegacy]

I think we're an ok lot. Alot of bad eggs mind you. But at least we aren't Geese...or Ducks. Because those guys are assholes.

 

Although I think pessimists like you (OP) are the reason for alot of that bad eggness. Stop pissing on everyones picnics already!

You don't have a very long time before you're gone. You really wanna spend it angsting over how "awful" people are?

[Seraphim24]

What? Me?

 

I certainly hope you are referring to Fast Jimmy, there's nothing more pessimistic than fixating on all those kinds of things (which I haven't done). I'm literally just like listening to a happy song right now, cheery and all that.

 

At best I would categorize myself as neutral, mostly because of dissatisfaction with definitions.

[TheClonesLegacy]

What? Me?

 

I certainly hope you are referring to Fast Jimmy, there's nothing more pessimistic than fixating on all those kinds of things. I'm literally just like listening to a happy song right now, cheery and all that.

Nah the OP.

Kefka you're cool, and you're avi is Zelda, which is awesome.

[Seraphim24]

Oh ok, you were talking about good and evil as concepts though which was I was just wondering about so I thought you were.

 

Incidentally I would take this chance to make the other point which was... for all those sad things you can probably find just as many positive things.

 

One thing I actually liked to do for fun was google something random and different than what you are force-fed through mass media, or when I myself was thinking about. Like, "I think my co-worker has a crush on me," even though I'm not in that exact situation, and voila up popped a cute story about a girl and a guy over summer at a Pizza Hut. Nothing prompted to me on twitter or some thing to make me do that and yet that's where those things are happening. Also, I wasn't waiting for that actual situation for myself, in which case the intrigue and so on would make me view it in a complicated manner.

 

The media chooses never to focus on those kinds of things, or many of the happy experiences people have, because of some complicated phenemenon that I'm sure Noam Chomsky written down somewhere.

[xAmilli0n]

Question:

 

 

Do you think human beings are inherently vile, self seeking and malevolent? 

 

Vile and malevolent I think are not the right way of looking at it in my opinion.  I would say we are all inherently selfish, and if possible, will always look out for ones self interest.  However, we are also capable of finding meaning in the things we do that take precedence over our self interest.

 

If nothing else, humans are complicated, and can't simply be labeled malevolent en masse, because we aren't.

[Dermain]

Oh ok, you were talking about good and evil as concepts though which was I was just wondering about so I thought you were.

 

Incidentally I would take this chance to make the other point which was... for all those sad things you can probably find just as many positive things.

 

One thing I actually liked to do for fun was google something random and different than what you are force-fed through mass media, or when I myself was thinking about. Like, "I think my co-worker has a crush on me," even though I'm not in that exact situation, and voila up popped a cute story about a girl and a guy over summer at a Pizza Hut. Nothing prompted to me on twitter or some thing to make me do that and yet that's where those things are happening. Also, I wasn't waiting for that actual situation for myself, in which case the intrigue and so on would make me view it in a complicated manner.

 

The media chooses never to focus on those kinds of things, or many of the happy experiences people have, because of some complicated phenemenon that I'm sure Noam Chomsky written down somewhere.

 

Chomsky is a linguist not a psychologist.

[Fast Jimmy]

What? Me?

I certainly hope you are referring to Fast Jimmy, there's nothing more pessimistic than fixating on all those kinds of things (which I haven't done). I'm literally just like listening to a happy song right now, cheery and all that.

At best I would categorize myself as neutral, mostly because of dissatisfaction with definitions.

Dang bro, that was a heck of a bus you just threw me under, there.

[Seraphim24]

No no I thought the original person was just talking about that conversation, and so that comment. Oy, I don't understand why social media and forums are supposed to be so popular, it's just easier to have these kinds of things happen.

 

Although to be fair it was technically pessimistic, in my opinion, which I'm not saying is necessarily good or bad either.

[EarthboundNess]

No. I probably would have agreed with that not too long ago. Maybe because its easier to believe that people are more inclined to negative action, rather than just choosing to do so. Or something like that. Too deep for me at this time of night. Probably at all.

 

Today I'd say what we're inherently brought towards doing is focussing on the negativity in people over anything else. And that doesn't really go anywhere.

 

Its much easier to focus on the opposite instead. Way less depressing, and I'd go as far to say there are more people predisposed to positivity, just that they're overlooked.

[DEUGH Man]

I follow a basic bit of logic that helps me sleep at night. Living things care first and foremost about their well being and survival. Human beings are living things, and they follow this bit of programming. Every human decides on what they feel like they need to survive (be it creativity, emotions, success, yadda yadda yadda...), and they act based on fulfilling these aspects of their survival. Therefore, selfishness is a trait that every living thing has, but it is rooted in survival.