Most people seem to want others not to have a good life, ignoring or disregarding the effects that might have on themselves.
Many if not most would sacrifice their own wellbeing if that guarantees that “the right people” will also suffer. They see the world as a zero sum game, and can’t conceive the possibility of having a good life if others aren’t having a bad one.
Most people suck, often to the point of being monstrous by any decent definition.
I’m pushing back on this viewpoint wherever I’m seeing it. Humans are certainly flawed in a lot of ways, especially in how easy it can be to mislead us, but this cynical worldview that most people are actively wanting others to hurt is not based in reality. Honestly it sounds like me when I was in the depths of depression.
I think we have a major problem with how we share and consume news. Stories are shared as screen-capped headlines that emphasize the Bad thing that happened, and even if you find the original article, it’s stuffed with ads that make you not want to bother. Random one-off bad/stupid things that one person did somewhere far away are reported as world news without statistics and context.
The result? Increasing cynicism. The good, uplifting stories rarely come through. People begin to base their worldview and how they interact with other people on this “fact” that most people suck. This culminates in them becoming the thing that they think everyone is - they go through life scared of or angry at other people by default.
It isn’t an inevitability. Maybe I’m wrong, but believing in people is a much better existence, even when they occasionally let me down.
Most people seem to want others not to have a good life, ignoring or disregarding the effects that might have on themselves.
Many if not most would sacrifice their own wellbeing if that guarantees that “the right people” will also suffer. They see the world as a zero sum game, and can’t conceive the possibility of having a good life if others aren’t having a bad one.
Most people suck, often to the point of being monstrous by any decent definition.
Source?
I’m pushing back on this viewpoint wherever I’m seeing it. Humans are certainly flawed in a lot of ways, especially in how easy it can be to mislead us, but this cynical worldview that most people are actively wanting others to hurt is not based in reality. Honestly it sounds like me when I was in the depths of depression.
I think we have a major problem with how we share and consume news. Stories are shared as screen-capped headlines that emphasize the Bad thing that happened, and even if you find the original article, it’s stuffed with ads that make you not want to bother. Random one-off bad/stupid things that one person did somewhere far away are reported as world news without statistics and context.
The result? Increasing cynicism. The good, uplifting stories rarely come through. People begin to base their worldview and how they interact with other people on this “fact” that most people suck. This culminates in them becoming the thing that they think everyone is - they go through life scared of or angry at other people by default.
It isn’t an inevitability. Maybe I’m wrong, but believing in people is a much better existence, even when they occasionally let me down.
I mean… [ gestures broadly at everything ]
Problem is that people are fairly easily told that their less-than-optimal situation is the fault of those people, regardless of it being true or not.