It make sense that a society ends up getting constructed in a way that guarantees wealth, power, and many offspring for the people who do the constructing and that’s what happens every single time and it goes on in perpetuity. And this happens because people a few people suck and a lot of people are gullible and easily scared.
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Do you agree with the Lockean concept of human nature as tabula rasa?
- Strongly agree
- Agree
- Neutral
- Disagree
- Strongly disagree
- Not sure/Don’t care
- I don’t know what that is
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I disagree with Locke’s sense, but not with an expanded sense that looks at humans across generations and millenia.
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I found this paper that has some relevant stats:
In their defense, it seems to be a strategy that’s working from them and keeping them from getting exposed to horrifying European diseases. Lots of people would have been better off if they’d been more hostile to white guys.
I already knew it was generally higher (though it looks like the homicide rate in Los Angeles hasn’t changed much in the last 4000 years. The question is, when the percentage of murderers around you is 0.005% it’s pretty obviously wrong to say that means people are generally violent in that society. If the rate is 10 or even 100 times higher does that mean people are more inherently violent than peaceful?
This whole discussion is like sand slipping through fingers because nobody is setting any framework for discussion.
Violent compared to what, when?
Is violence even a measure of “goodness”?
What is goodness?
Not really imo, which is why when the state is trying to sell violence they have to convince people that they need to do if they are good. Most people are gullible and easily frightened and happy enough to defer responsibility to authority.
And pretty sure this conversation started with some incredibly broad statements by BS about how people are all evil trash, so … at least something other than what BS was saying.
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I mean if people really are all evil trash (they aren’t), we may as well go all the way (we shouldn’t):
Part of the point was to gauge knowledge levels.
Goodness is a warm burrito.
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Ignoring every response in this thread except this one starting now.
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Murder rates aren’t the only way to gauge human nature. Look at how prevalent sexual violence becomes when men think they can get away with it, eg. in war or in positions of power.
Yeah maybe, but it started because Boredsocial used ‘humans suck’ as a justification to not be sufficiently anti-capitalist and in favor of radical change. And instead of picking the boring way of saying, well yeah, but we dream of a better world regardless if that’s true or not, people opted for the fun way of arguing that, no, you see, humans are totally super sweet that’s why the world is totally awesome and kickass anywhere you look, geographically and historically.
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It’s a pretty great invention.
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Of course it’s incoherent, that’s why you should ignore me or Boredsocial or whomever when they break out Misanthropy For Dummies and tell you to give it a skim. You all did a good job of ignoring me, right? This was a legitimate question:
And not to toot my own horn but it was cleverly crafted because even if it was largely ignored it would still prove my point.
But I guess it seemed like Boredsocial’s slippery statements could be pinned down? I don’t really know.
Also,
That’s where I am, with the one big caveat that I don’t use it as a value judgment on other people nor does it inform my politics (you might say that me not doing so technically makes me not an antinatalist, which, maybe; it’s like the vegan not giving people a hard time about not being vegan). I mean, when I’ve said in passing that I don’t have children, never will have children, never planned to have children as far back as I can remember, what did people think (assuming they even noticed when I mentioned it) I meant? That I hadn’t “found the right woman” or some shit?
Maybe I answered my own question about what’s different between Boredsocial and myself: the part about none of this informing my politics. Up until recently when I just labelled myself a vague dirtbag leftist, I labelled myself a Utopian Socialist. Ironically we are actually the biggest pessimists when you peel back the layers but outwardly nobody would, correctly, think I wasn’t saying a better world is always possible.
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Answering your question would just be a series of compliments and insults so I’ll decline this time in service of human harmony.
I can put it like this though: ignoring people isn’t very nice and while I’m a big proponent of Fuck Your My Feelings (no srsly, I don’t give a shit and I give people the benefit of the doubt that when they’re shitty to me I just assume they know I won’t mind) it makes me think of how everybody here is supposed to be Forum Best Frens and be nice to each other, but, will be as shitty as possible to each other at the drop of a hat. And you all are actually good people, the best humanity has to offer (percentile-wise and that’s a scary thought, right?) and still can’t help but to try to ruin somebody’s day on the forum.
Chess and mate.
So we’re in agreement that harmonious human goodness is but a thin veil, a house of cards built on a rickety table that also happens to be made of cards?
Welcome to the club! There are snacks and drinks in the back.