People are fundamentally 'good'.

What I mean is the silly kid , is some simpleton with a rich mummy and daddy , theyd rather see in a top role than someone who actually has *talent*.

ie their greed / genetic vanity /delusional crap overrulling whats actually good for society.

The problem with Britain is , there *are* clever bus drivers who could cure disease.And upper clas twits running massive medical cos who havent got the brains to do fuck all

Its all"Yes , let someone else do the important things , but if I can buy a £400 pair of shoes today ... who gives a fuck - until *I* get a disease..."

Still if they *do* catch that disease I'd almost feel happy...

 

Alright Lode, how about this one ...

I disagree. While on a certain level I have to agree with Prax, that people aren't fundamentally anything other than human, I think stopping with that leaves out something very real and very important. On the practical level of things I think that, while people aren't fundamentally evil, all of us act as if they are.

My explanation goes like this. Because of our diffidence. Whether or not people tend to do this particular thing, or that particular thing, we can have no absolute certainty that everyone is going to do either this, or that. The majority may do this, and only a few might do that.

On a practical level what does that mean? It means that anyone you come into contact with in any form may be planning to do bad things to you, or may do something bad to you. It is never the case that this is not a possibility. In order to provide ourselves with a sense of safety and self preservation we act reasonably and provide ourselves with the tools to create that sense of safety and self preservation, whatever those tools may be. How else can law be explained?

so because of this diffidence, of this distrust, on a practical level we view people as fundamentally evil.

 

You're assuming that our fear of danger is more important than our thirst for it.

It is not a fact that our instinct for self-preservation is stronger than our death instinct --- that is, our instinct of living for something else.

Of giving our lives for something: be that intimacy or work -

 

Society doesn't brainwash anybody. Brainwashing refers to a very specific torture technique used by military and intelligence forces worldwide.

I hate the loose use of the term -

Society is a ghost of the mind.

It's not some willful entity that does this or does that

What there is in actuality is a bunch of individuals sharing space. Naturally, those individuals influence each other dialectically.

 

no actuallly i dont believe in evil ppl, i know its stupid but thats just the way i see the world

 

i wouldn't say we are intrinsically greedy, but we DO have egos, and for good reason. like fitz said, it's all about survival, and some are willing to do evil to maintain their standard of living. some aspects of society nurture the vices in people and allow them to feel justified in committing evil to other members of society. people are born with a proclivity toward both good and evil; the ego fluctuates, just like emotions.

it is partially up to society to teach people how to "get along," but i agree with socrates when he said that "learning" is really just "remembering." (call it the collective unconscious or past life memories..) we all have a moral compass somewhere, we just have to be reintroduced to it.

 

so you KNOW your worldview is wrong yet you REFUSE to change it?

 

I don't believe in evil people either.

I also believe there is good and selflessness that is plain evil.

 

we're all the same in the end

 

God I wish I wasn't taking a temporary medication that renders me stupid and foggy headed. I would have to much to say in this thread.

One thought that is forming somewhere in the back of my mind is that the whole question of whether people are basically good is basically useless. In a world where humanity is becoming endowed with greater choices and power faster than it has time to adjust to, the question should be WHY do people do bad things?

My question is, why do many people rationalise in favour of being cruel, self centered and exploitative when they obviously (perhaps without knowing it) have a great deal of choice in the matter? I mean, how hard is it to be basically good? Not very.

 

whoah, mr rebel over here
you can contradict me all you want

 

sorry-

 

i said diffidence praxis. hobbesian diffidence. Meditation one.

 

i don't believe in evil people, either. every time i watch those shows on the most gruesome serial killers, all i see in my minds eye my sweet little kitty cat eviscerating a mouse just for fun. that's not evil, that's practice. it's creepy to think of human beings that way, but some of our people were likely built to be hunter/savages but no longer really have a place in our society. they're unevolved, not evil.

 

But if u understand your actions , think about it , and deliberately cause real bad shit , then what isnt evil?Some of the most intelligent people are the most evil .They arent "unevolved" ( moral aspect aside).

I think people are generally thoughtless and lacking in mental energy.
Its amazing how some people get hypnotized in seconds.And how we all have early experiences shaping our views.We generally dont want to improve things because "its always been done that way"- ie excuses/laziness.

 

i consider evil to be a myth used to explain away animal behavior that doesn't fit in with what we want society as a whole to be. it's like explaining the sun in the sky with a story about a coyote. yeah, it sounds pretty, but it's ultimately meainingless except in exhibiting the mentality of the society who made it up.

 

Good and evil is just a game people have made up to justify things and entertain themselves.

You say evil people deliberately cause real bad shit, but who is the one considering it real bad shit?

All men seek good things. What those things are, and if they are good or not, is entirely subjective however. If a serial killer seeks to kill, and finds value in it, it is a good thing to him. No one deliberately sets out to be "evil" or "bad" b/c that would only bring harm to themselves.

 

Ofcourse people set out to be bad .They've said it to me , themselves!

If I hack someone's family to bits cos its "amusing" , would u say "yeah good on him , he's only having fun , who are we to judge?"

"Evil"( in the social sense) is massive and gratuitous destruction , that serves no purpose other than for a twisted perpetuator.

Sure the blblical vs Satanic definitions of these things vary , but even true "Satanists"
( I believe there are some here) , have a code of what is acceptable and what isn't.

 

well, obviously, those satanists who hacked up and ate teenagers in russia have a very different idea of what's acceptable. it's like watching a troop of baboons gang up on, murder and eat the weakest of their group just because he plain doesn't fit in. they're not evil. they're animals.

 

You are almost making my point for me with your third paragraph.

What you do and who you hack, you do for a reason. there is something prior to the hacking, where you evaluate and decide what you will do.
Now, if you know that you killing someone will only cause you misforture, b/c you will be in jail and whatnot, why would you still do it?

Well, you do it b/c you see some sort of good in it, some sort of beneficial quality that makes it worth your while and worth the risk of punishment.

This is what I mean, when I say no man deliberately does bad things. Everyone is seeking their own personal (subjective) good things that they wish to fulfill.

People usually automatically jump to the conclusion that you did, where they assume I do not care when people hurt other people and that we have no place to judge. That isn't what I'm saying.

I'm simply pointing out that good and evil is just a game, one of which we are all active participants.