People constantly say that humans are terrible by default, selfish, and violent, but BY DEFAULT, if you ARE a well adjusted human being with empathy, you will ALWAYS feel conflicted about committing violence towards another human, even if they 100% deserve it. In fact, if you kill or severely maim someone, you’ll always feel conflicted about it if you are a good human, and doing it several times (or hell, even ONCE if it’s traumatizing enough) will give you severe PTSD. The problem of humans being terrible to each other is always created by indocrination, propaganda, and the fact that being a selfish idiot is rewarded in capitalist society. This is one of the reasons why I think humanity is inherently good, and that evil people are the ACTUAL deviants, who just happen to be rewarded by the way society has been structured for a very long time (even before capitalism).
People (that aren’t psychopaths or sociopaths) are very good at individually being empathetic to other members of their in group, that haven’t broken their ideological rules. However, even normal, empathetic people can shut off their empathy when people of a certain group belong to another out group, or are dehumanised (eg ‘well dark skinned people aren’t really human like light skinned people are, so it’s fine to enslave them’) or if they break your moral code (eg ‘well they’re gay, so it’s morally justifiable to kill them’)
TBH I think this is more of a conditioning thing. Like, very young toddlers (up to like, 5-6 years old) literally cannot understand racism. This is actually lampshaded in Wolfenstein II, when BJ just talks to a black girl and tells her about all the shit his father says about her race but he straight up says he doesn’t understand his reasons at all.
Again, I do not think people are evil by default. Hate is something that is taught, not inherent.
(I’m replying to you and the post you’re replying to, if that makes sense.)
Racism is a single aspect of in and out groups. We didn’t evolve to work in groups of more than 150, maybe 200 individuals max. People of any skin tone can be in my Monkeysphere, but if they’re outside of it, they’re somewhat less than human, less real. No one is above this.
I’m sure I’ll get comments from people who think they are above it. “Fuck you, you inhuman monster! I value ALL human life equally!” Nah, no one does.
https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
Plenty of research out there, aside from what’s included in the article. The author is mostly explaining Dunbar’s Number.
This video does a good job breaking down the core of the truth of why and how altruism arises, and why not everyone is altruistic:
https://youtu.be/XX7PdJIGiCw
The reality is that evolution and the natural world does not care about individuals, or groups, or species. It is selecting for genes and genes dont give one flying fuck about anything other than whether they help more copies of themselves exist in the world. Sometimes that’s altruistic, sometimes it’s not.
Out of time for a video than long, but you can bet I saved it! Love examining how we hominids came to be, how we came to behave. So many arguments as to how we “should” act clash with how we “evolved” to act. Untangling “should” vs. “is” would take us farther than arguing about ideal behavior.
Aim for a better world keeping in mind as it is, not how it should be. Am drunk. Making sense?
You make valid points, but I feel the truth lies somewhere in between your comment and the people in the chain that you are responding to.
If the truth is in between, it’s because we’re arguing different things. I think everyone in this chain gets “it”, but we’re meandering a bit. Great conversation!
Not necessarily! Sometimes the truth or a greater understanding can emerge even from two or more seemingly paradoxical or conflicting statements or ideas.
i.e. Dialectical reasoning
Thesis + antithesis = synthesis (which is likely still an inkling of the total truth, but nonetheless)
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Some hate, at least reactionary hate to circumstances, is inherent in humans, otherwise it wouldn’t be here.
Who taught us hate if not us?
Recharacterize hate and anger as fear, human behavior makes more sense.
Yeah, racism is taught, as OP’s talking about, but fear of the other, the other outside our tribe, is genetic.
People take that opinion to mean racism is natural. Nope. It’s not skin color, it’s “other”. It’s a big world now, too big for us to easily parse, so we try to break each other into manageable chunks we can understand, skin color is an easy shortcut.
For example; I’m a middle-aged, American white guy. I understand, and am far closer, to my black friend down the street than I could be to any European, even one who looks exactly like me. My friend is in my tribe, my Monkeysphere, the European is not. Despite wildly different backgrounds, I share more in common with my friend than a random Spaniard. And if nothing else, he’s close, literally and figuratively, part of my tribe. Does that make sense?
Yup. Prison experiment that went awry.
I forget the name. Basic textbook shit.
That experiment has been pretty thoroughly discredited.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Stanford
Ya. Thanks!
I think the name is America. We became the dumping ground when Australia told England to get fucked.