10 replies to this topic

[ShadowSot]

(Apologies for any spelling travesties that occur, my spellcheck isn't workingwith the current version of the forum for some reason.)

So, every day we are barraged by various media outlets of terrible stories of people inflicting what can only be described as hell upon their fellow beings. Whether it's tales of actively inflicting pain, or simply ignoring the suffering of another being, we are constantly reminded of how horrible we can be to one another.

  And in todays age this is not restricted to our own communities, towns, cities, or countries. We are regularly fed news from around the globe of the various indignities offered to another human, and with television and the internet these stories can be made to be as personal as to if it happened to dear friends or relatives.

And yet, despite this I would hold that these tragedies represent the minority of human behaviour.
Steven Pinker demonstrates in one of his books (that I highly recommend if you have trouble sleeping or are particularly fascinated with heavy psycological and mathmatical literature, or both) that as time has progressed there are fewer and fewer incidences of great violence among humans. Yes, even counting the wars of the 20th century.

In my experience, and in the experience of many people I know, most people are decent.
Not great. Not awesome.
But they're decent people, and most given good oppurtunity will do the right thing. Something I feel is also common in this forum. I suspect that most of this forum regards most of the people they know to be decent people as well.

Is the world as good as it could be? No, far from it.

I have found, however, that the belief of the world being a cursed place, effects the views and actions of many people, and that is something that only perpetuates a cycle.

[keninsc]

I'm not going to comment on the sucking part, I know a few human who and it's kind of nice...........oh wait, suck in the bad way. Ok, I know some of those too.

Seriously thought, humans have been preying upon other humans since that first primal ape stood up right. Terrible as it sounds humans, kill, enslave, screw over, back stab, and do all sorts of terrible things even today because in geologic time we have just gotten here. It'll take another twenty-five to fifty thousand years for us to truly change.

Get use to it........Dude I could tell you some stories that would curl your hair.

[Cosmic Radiant]

keninsc, on 29 April 2012 - 04:34 AM, said:

I'm not going to comment on the sucking part, I know a few human who and it's kind of nice...........oh wait, suck in the bad way. Ok, I know some of those too.

Seriously thought, humans have been preying upon other humans since that first primal ape stood up right. Terrible as it sounds humans, kill, enslave, screw over, back stab, and do all sorts of terrible things even today because in geologic time we have just gotten here. It'll take another twenty-five to fifty thousand years for us to truly change.

Get use to it........Dude I could tell you some stories that would curl your hair.

Your missing the point. Sure humans were brutal back then because humans as a species were very unintelligent. Humans do have a survival instinct which we all carry. Back then, we had to be like this so we could survive. Killing other humans was necessary if they tried taking away your land or food supply.

We are so advanced now, not to mention intelligent. Like the OP said, most people these days are decent people.

The point is that the news media always wants to remind us of the very few evil people in this world. Theres really not that many, but it seems like many when thats all you hear on the news. I agree with the OP completely, and also I feel that hearing about all these murders and rapes on the news or the radio, unconsciously creates a worldview and keeps us "trapped" here in this mindset.

The world is a beautiful place, so focus on that, and stop believing that just because humans used to be primal, that we must continue to think that way about the "reality" of our species. Primal behavior is produced from our survial instincts, but that is only triggered when needed.

[and then]

Yes.  But no more or less so than they ever have,imo.

[keninsc]

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Your missing the point. Sure humans were brutal back then because humans as a species were very unintelligent. Humans do have a survival instinct which we all carry. Back then, we had to be like this so we could survive. Killing other humans was necessary if they tried taking away your land or food supply.

No, I have the point firmly in hand. The strong have always preyed on the weak, doesn't matter if it's an individual or a town against another town, state against state, country against country. It's written in our DNA and in evolutionary time scale we are hardly out of the caves good. If you want to survive then you better be willing to fight for your share.

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We are so advanced now, not to mention intelligent. Like the OP said, most people these days are decent people.

Please see above post, ditto.

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The point is that the news media always wants to remind us of the very few evil people in this world. Theres really not that many, but it seems like many when thats all you hear on the news. I agree with the OP completely, and also I feel that hearing about all these murders and rapes on the news or the radio, unconsciously creates a worldview and keeps us "trapped" here in this mindset.

There are evil people in the world, to be sure, however the most evil you never hear a word about, why? Because we put them on platforms and pedestals and call them "Captains of Industry" or "Chief Executive Officers". My dear fellow, these are the people who allow us to get a little from them so that we may serve them better. That's it in a nutshell. No, they don't club us over the head and drag our women off by the hair of the head, but they decide how much we pay for stuff and that is determined by how much they can get for whatever it is they have and we want. Same game just played with different weapons my man.

Quote

The world is a beautiful place, so focus on that, and stop believing that just because humans used to be primal, that we must continue to think that way about the "reality" of our species. Primal behavior is produced from our survial instincts, but that is only triggered when needed.

The world can be a wonderful and beautiful place, I totally agree with you, but if you deny the plain truth that we are killers and can still just as easily take what we need should we be put in a position where this is a necessary do what we have to in order to survive. Take my word for it, if push comes to shove you're either a winner or loser and the winners always eat better.

No it isn't pretty, however I have seen what one human will do to another in a situation where the rule of society are thrown out the window and it's damned ugly and shocking. But it happens day in and day out on this lovely little thing we call Earth. It's happening right now as I'm typing and right now as you read this. Yeah, we call it evil, but that title is a title the winners give the losers and the winners make all the rules and yeah, we all have to live with them.

Not trying to hurt your feeling or start a flaming war, just telling you what the real world is really like.

[Lcvec]

Cosmic Radiant, on 29 April 2012 - 04:54 AM, said:

Your missing the point. Sure humans were brutal back then because humans as a species were very unintelligent. Humans do have a survival instinct which we all carry. Back then, we had to be like this so we could survive. Killing other humans was necessary if they tried taking away your land or food supply.

We are so advanced now, not to mention intelligent. Like the OP said, most people these days are decent people.

The point is that the news media always wants to remind us of the very few evil people in this world. Theres really not that many, but it seems like many when thats all you hear on the news. I agree with the OP completely, and also I feel that hearing about all these murders and rapes on the news or the radio, unconsciously creates a worldview and keeps us "trapped" here in this mindset.

The world is a beautiful place, so focus on that, and stop believing that just because humans used to be primal, that we must continue to think that way about the "reality" of our species. Primal behavior is produced from our survial instincts, but that is only triggered when needed.

I wouldn't go as far as to say there are very few evil people in the planet, of course it would be the case if you were talking about extremes (rapists, murderers and worse), but with the way we live we're almost forced to be selfish if we want to get anything, and it goes from the small actions like taking advantage of someone just so you can take the best opportunities to deliberately trying to make someone's life harder for whatever reason.

Obviously not everyone is like that but I believe most people can be, given the situation...as for violence, unless the person has serious issues, there's always a reason for it and it's not because people are evil, but you can link it to ideas like men beating women because women are supposed to just obey their husbands or killing because it makes you look tough, going against the law because it's considered "cool" in certain areas, in the end I think it all comes down to people failing to understand the basic rules of living in a human society. I don't think a murderer or a criminal (in most cases at least) is fit for living with everyone else, what kind of society would work if everyone wanted to kill, steal from each other? My point is, there's just too many of us in the world for the rules to apply and it's only going to get worse, as long as whole countries aren't literally wiped out at a time, I doubt it would make a real difference to the world. I guess we can still hope that one day people will learn that we still need each other.

[Paracelse]

keninsc, on 29 April 2012 - 05:40 AM, said:

No, I have the point firmly in hand. The strong have always preyed on the weak, doesn't matter if it's an individual or a town against another town, state against state, country against country. It's written in our DNA and in evolutionary time scale we are hardly out of the caves good. If you want to survive then you better be willing to fight for your share.


Please see above post, ditto.


There are evil people in the world, to be sure, however the most evil you never hear a word about, why? Because we put them on platforms and pedestals and call them "Captains of Industry" or "Chief Executive Officers". My dear fellow, these are the people who allow us to get a little from them so that we may serve them better. That's it in a nutshell. No, they don't club us over the head and drag our women off by the hair of the head, but they decide how much we pay for stuff and that is determined by how much they can get for whatever it is they have and we want. Same game just played with different weapons my man.



The world can be a wonderful and beautiful place, I totally agree with you, but if you deny the plain truth that we are killers and can still just as easily take what we need should we be put in a position where this is a necessary do what we have to in order to survive. Take my word for it, if push comes to shove you're either a winner or loser and the winners always eat better.

No it isn't pretty, however I have seen what one human will do to another in a situation where the rule of society are thrown out the window and it's damned ugly and shocking. But it happens day in and day out on this lovely little thing we call Earth. It's happening right now as I'm typing and right now as you read this. Yeah, we call it evil, but that title is a title the winners give the losers and the winners make all the rules and yeah, we all have to live with them.

Not trying to hurt your feeling or start a flaming war, just telling you what the real world is really like.

All that is nessecary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.  Edmund Burke

[Knight Of Shadows]

Absoutly we do

[CommunitarianKevin]

Cosmic Radiant, on 29 April 2012 - 04:54 AM, said:

Your missing the point. Sure humans were brutal back then because humans as a species were very unintelligent.

Humans back then were just as intelligent as they are today. The difference is that today we are able to store knowledge and access it very easily.

As far as the OP goes, I think humans are the same now as they were then, the only difference being that they have found more advanced ways of taking advantage of others.

[Purplos]

Generalizations suck.

There are evil people, bad people, apathetic people, decent people, and very good people. For every guy who knocks down a granny and steals her purse, there's a person who helps that granny pick up her bag if she drops it.

It always bothers me when people say they hate people, as if the entirety of the human race was nothing but destroyers and cruel beasts. I would ask people who say that what they are doing to make the human race's reputation better.

[MysticStrummer]

Humans don't suck, they're just animals. We're not nearly as advanced as we like to pretend we are. If we admitted that to ourselves as a species, we might be able to do something about the "evils" that result from our thinly veiled animal nature. Fighting over the control of natural resources now is no different from the scene at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the two primitive tribes fight over the water hole. We pretend it is and use more advanced tools to do it, but it's the same behavior. We need to move beyond our "us and them" fixation. We're all in this together.