Are humans inherently good or inherently evil?
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Most people are egoistic pricks. And those who aren't egoistic pricks are even more egoistic, as they want to be glorified for them not being egoistic pricks. We are all egoistic and evil and selfish in some way or another, it's just not our nature to not act out of self interest.
People? They're inherently tasty. Otherwise...they make their own choices, follow their own paths. Some good. Some evil. Most? Neither.
First of all, Hitler, in his mind, thought he was a good guy. He wasn't the cartoon villain with the maniacal laughter that we're told to believe. Sure, he was an over the top radical and his utopia required lots of casualties but when it came to Germany, he wanted nothing but the best for the country and its' people. Truth is, there are a lot of people in power with similar views as him, they just don't have as much power as him. It's quite hard to be as influential as him these days. I don't think he would be as influential if he was living today.retyopy said:
As for the topic, humans are inherently human. Good and evil are just human made concepts that aren't really applicable to reality.
Seriously!? Only one quote on altruism, and that's buy someone who doesn't even understand the principle behind altruism?tzimize said:
Let's get back to basics here. First off, what is good and evil? The only true answer here is the subjective definition of good and evil, altruism and selfishness. There is no objective good or evil in the universe, because there is no way or means to define it - objective morality does not exist. This is not D&D - there isn't a detect evil spell which tells you whether someone is evil so you know you can kill them and everyone knows that they were really a demon in disguise and you've saved the day. That's a pure fallacy that we use to justify our own actions, so that we can believe that ultimately everything we do is right, and keep a clear conscience. Even when we can't state that something is completely right, we come up with ways why such actions don't count. Often, it includes killing people who are seen as monsters, not people, which is all right. Just because we believe certain people to be evil doesn't mean that they believe themselves to be evil - in fact, most often they believe that those thinking they are evil are the ones that are evil. This is why there is no objective good and evil. There are just sides, and you might as well name them A and B for all that it matters.
Subjective morality does exist however, and concerns itself with how people relate to others. This brings us to altruism and selfishness. The problem is that people don't understand altruism - they think it is doing good things for the sake of doing good things. They think it is about being weak, and meak, and passive. It isn't. It is about working with other people. Altruism comes with intelligence.
Teamwork isn't just about safety in numbers, although this is a big part of it. It is also about understanding that teamwork is the most efficient distribution method, and thus the most useful for survival and advancement of the human race. We use altruism as the basis of EVERY social structure we have in human society, and have always done so. Human babies can't survive without altruism - they will die because they are unable to fend for themselves. Therefore parents share their resources with their children. This is altruism.
The real problem, of course, is that intelligence is key to understanding altruism, because altruism is based on teamwork and trust. It requires all participants to be intelligent, because it requires them to realise that a smaller shared long-term stability through teamwork is more advantageous than a quick short-term gain from selfishness. The short term gain is appealing due to animal instinct and cunning, but the long-term growth and stability is the product of intelligence.
There are a number of intelligence failures that selfish people adopt. They play to their fears, thus creating self-fulling prophecies that reinforce their lack of trust, and simply perpetuate the misery in society. They often fail to appreciate that people can, and will, think like they do, and the consequences of their behaviour. They also often equate the idea that they can "win" with other people "losing" and fail to accept the fact that life is not a zero-sum game, and that all players involved can "lose", therefore those playing life as a zero-sum game are using the wrong rules and simply trolling everyone else. Such behaviour leads to misanthropic or passive-aggressive natures exhibited by people who happen to be such selfish people by default.
However, there are a few unique individuals, known as true altruists, who upon understanding that life is not a zero-sum game, begin to understand the intricacies of human society. They understand that in most relationships with other people, you don't ever actually get to make the decision on whether you "win" or "lose", but only whether the other person will "win" or "lose". Few relationships are actually directly confrontational. Therefore, they understand that in most circumstances their actions have little effect on what happens to themselves - they can't make themselves win. That choice belongs to the other person. All they can do is try and convince the other person to trust them. The easiest way to do this is by sharing and working together.
Ultimately, while the temptation for selfishness will always be there, the moment any betrayal happens, the trust is broken, and the person betraying that trust ends up out in the cold. Others will trust them less as well. The short term gain leaves them on their own, out amongst the other wolves.
There's a lot of propaganda going in to undermine altruism, because altruism smacks too much of communism, because that is essentially what communism is. It doesn't matter that we've been using variants of communism as a primary basis for our government and social models for most of human history, and capitalist propaganda seeks to undermine that by systematically reducing the intelligence of the world and instituting capitalism as the worlds largest, and most selfish, pyramid scheme that will one day seek to remove the entire point of government itself.
Good is more efficient than evil, and humanity generally tries to go for efficiency - So I would say we're leaning towards good, though we certainly have capacity for evil.
I'd say that humans are naturally evil. Because if we weren't naturally evil, why would we need any rules or regulations? It's the older generation's job to raise the younger generation. Because obviously we don't know the difference between right and wrong from birth.
Baseline to judge good versus evil: my own position / interest.
Note: I myself am human. Thus, humans in general act "good", i.e. they act in a way that is not inherently detrimental to humans. Might be to their health, but there's always a gain vs. value calculation behind it.
So ultimately, I would say good.
Note: I myself am human. Thus, humans in general act "good", i.e. they act in a way that is not inherently detrimental to humans. Might be to their health, but there's always a gain vs. value calculation behind it.
So ultimately, I would say good.
Yes let's discuss things that have been plaguing philosophers for at least 1500 years. Because socks.retyopy said:
Killertje said:
I want to live. I want food when hungry and water when thirsty: Evil?
The baker wants money for the bread that he baked for others to buy: Evil?
Who is to say what makes the world a better place? According to the US, counterterrorism makes the world a better place, yet it is like throwing kerosene on a fire ("inspiring" new generations) and there are plenty of collateral damage incidents (lots of dead innocent Pakistani, Afghani and Iraqi citizens).
Naaaaaaaaaah. There's an input. Survivor isn't just bodyless brain floating in black void afterall. Also, experiment is about "good" and "evil" not "wisdom" vs "savagery".veloper said:I don't think much can come out of a brain without input first. Language limits how far thoughts may go and this person won't know any words.JesterRaiin said:Why ? Such human is capable of thinking, reasoning. He (or she) lacks in education, wisdom, experience but he understands much more than any animal will ever do. He may be very smart and intelligent, he may create and use simple tools, he may erect some simple house. He is "raw", "pure" not stupid. No concepts of sin, no morality but that doesn't exclude intact brain.veloper said:
How about now ?
People learn almost everything by copying. Only very few people invent a new thing or two. He'll grow up very stupid as that big language unit grown on top of his monkey brain won't get any workout.
But ok, let's complicate this experiment even more. "My house on Mars" aka "Bradbury's effect".
You're a kid left alone in high-tech base. Everyone else died/left/were taken away. There are plenty of automatons, machines that take care about your health, provide you with food, drinks, even basic entertainment in form of let's see... simple action video games (tetris, audiosurf light cycle, luminous and such).
There's nothing in whole base that can help you acquire higher education and before they died, adults taught you only basics - how to order food, interact without machinery and so on. You possess no knowledge of religion, philosophy, code of laws, morality, ethics, sin, reward.
Where's "good" and "evil" in this ?
You're born leaning one side or another thanks to DNA but your parents influence and other environmental effects are probably the major influence - so for example if you learn at a young age that you can get away with minor stealing, then you'll probably be changed for later on, if on the other hand you learn there's no need to steal then you'll probably turn out differently.
It's pretty much just a slate that either slants one way or another but has no major influence over the total environmental effects have on a person and how they react to their environment, in an weird morality kind of way, no one is truly evil because it's just the way they react to the environment around them, even if someone goes on a killing spree - it's their reaction to be stressed on craving serious attention or hell maybe even wanting to die via death penalty.
Mass murdering thousands or even millions is just one of the many human ways of passing the time to some, in a weird way it's no different to why we read books when bored.
It's pretty much just a slate that either slants one way or another but has no major influence over the total environmental effects have on a person and how they react to their environment, in an weird morality kind of way, no one is truly evil because it's just the way they react to the environment around them, even if someone goes on a killing spree - it's their reaction to be stressed on craving serious attention or hell maybe even wanting to die via death penalty.
Mass murdering thousands or even millions is just one of the many human ways of passing the time to some, in a weird way it's no different to why we read books when bored.
Evil is a matter of perspective, all humans are naturally selfish and self serving but humans aren't naturally "evil".
There is no such thing as "evil" just different perceptions of "good". No one wakes up in the morning and says "I am going to do something evil today!".
No one is a 1950's Superman villain.
No one is a 1950's Superman villain.
I believe that humans tend to draw from their primitive needs- survival, safety, sex, ect, and we steadily evolved from being animalistic to becoming more civilized. The idea of good and evil is something that humanity came up with, as a dominant species with both the mental capacity and the society that allowed them to be both sadistic and charitable.
So in short, humans are neither good nor evil- that idea of the world is just something we came up with and lived over time. While we are capable of both, our race as a whole is not initially aligned to either, no more than an animal would be. Perhaps society has psychologically raised us to value material items or to think selfishly, but our society has nothing to do with our eternal souls, in my opinion.
I do hope that makes some sort of sense, I'm half-awake right now. Now what about socks?
So in short, humans are neither good nor evil- that idea of the world is just something we came up with and lived over time. While we are capable of both, our race as a whole is not initially aligned to either, no more than an animal would be. Perhaps society has psychologically raised us to value material items or to think selfishly, but our society has nothing to do with our eternal souls, in my opinion.
I do hope that makes some sort of sense, I'm half-awake right now. Now what about socks?