Why do people have such faith in humanity?

[klasbo]

Here's the cure: Get down from that cross, use the wood to build a bridge and then get over it.

Google tells me "Christopher Todd Titus". Anyway, great words. Such a wonderful mish-mash of metaphors and idioms. The cross, the bridge, the notion of taking matters into own hands.
I think I just had a literary nerdgasm.

Spoiler: Quotes!

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.

You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.

Where a man can live, he can also live well.

Humans have come into being for the sake of each other, so either teach them, or learn to bear them.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Let men see, let them know, a real man, who lives as he was meant to live.

Oh Lord... I think I've polluted myself.

I also have aspergers syndrome, officially diagnosed, not self, but that is the thing that is least wrong with me.

I feel people want me dead because they did all throughout school. I tried to figure out why, and this is the only thing I could come out with. Everyone else seems perfect biologically, physically and mentally. People still stare at me. All the time, staring judging.
[...]
They confuse me. There is no reason to like me. No logic.

I've had the same "problem" myself: always trying to apply logic to every situation. That's just the way some of our brains are wired.

The problem is that you can't always apply direct binary logic to complex and chaotic systems. I've fallen for that trap myself, and my interaction with fellow humans as taken a few beatings for that.
What you need is to study chaos theory, evolutionary psychology, (other) psychology and quantum physics. unlike history, those explain "how", instead of just "what". If you want to know "why", then you're in the wrong multiverse. There is no "why", and this is where the standard binary yes/no logic breaks down.

Don't look at "why" someone should like you. Just find out what makes them stop liking you, stop doing that thing, then cherish the people that do like you. It has worked out for me. People are weird.

 

[Madman123456]

We have Faith in Humanity because we're doing fairly well. I really don't like it when someone says all the other Creatures naturally form a Balance with their Environment. They don't. They are living in their Environment, and if they can't survive, they die. If they end up using all the Resources in their Habitat, they move onto another one, the adapt or they die. The Creatures of Nature don't form a natural Balance, the ones we see today are the ones that managed to survive. And they will happily kill and eat members of their own species to do so.

Humans are the only Species with some Members that try to lessen the Damage they do on their Environment. We are the only Species with moral Codes, things that have very little to do with out Survival but we consider them good or bad and act upon that and enforce that Behavior in others.

We have our social Bonds. We protect our own. But not only our Family Clan or our Village, somehow we managed to expand our "Communities" by factors in the thousands. We will still fight over Resources, to ensure that our Community is not only surviving, but better off then all the others if possible.



Where would one draw a line to distinguish the first "Human" from his Animal-forefathers?
Doesn't matter much in this Thread, because every Animal will fight to the Death over Resources, mostly Food and Water.

We are the only Species with Members that would consider giving a complete Stranger, who is not a Member of the same Nation and might even pose a threat later, resources he needs to survive.
Pretty much every Animal would let other Members of the Species die.

Humans have expanded their social Bonds to pretty much every Member of their Species. Normally, we'd help a starving Person. Pictures of starving People will get us to send Money to complete Strangers so they can help those other Strangers.

We have developed this Sense ridiculously fast and no one really knows how our Brains which seem to be a randomly assembled Mess deal with that. Occasionally, some of our Species simply freak out and ditch their moral Code but we should be rather happy that this Stone Age Machine that is our Brain somehow manages to slip up so rarely. While, in a Way, bringing us towards World Peace faster then anyone can imagine.


TL;DR: We have the Minds of Predators. It was "Kill or be killed!" for us for millions of Years.
And in a mere 10000 Years or so, we've gone from violent Killers (like pretty much everything else in Nature) to our Civilization now, which still has violent Killers but most of us are happy to kill virtual People on the TV.

 

[Innegativeion]

See, I've studied history alot. I've found that we seem to spend 90% of our time on pointless warfare. Even all those great steps we made; mostly made in the name of war, or in the course of war.

History books tend to focus on war a lot because it's one of the things that leads to things changing. History books could go into people from ye olden times falling in love and having families, but it's a generally irrelevant thing to bring up in a history book, especially one about war. If you go a good deal further back in history, humans were dumber, and the more primitive an animal is, the more likely it is to respond to conflict by trying to kill the source of the conflict.

Yeah, this is pretty true; war brings change. And when you think about, how much more horrible was life for many people before some of those wars?

American slaves prior to the civil war, serfs prior to the crusades, Jews(gypsies gays people who looked at hitler funny etc.) prior to WWII, think of how the American revolution *ahem* "revolutionized" modern politics. So many other countries follow a similar democratic model now, and people are (mostly) happier for it.

Considering the patterns, things are getting better as time passes.

 

[Hagi]

Before i get started, i just want to say that I don't want this to come across as an emo thread, although I'm not feeling great at the moment, I largely just feel curious as to this:

Why do so many people have such faith in the "good" in humanity?

See, I've studied history alot. I've found that we seem to spend 90% of our time on pointless warfare. Even all those great steps we made; mostly made in the name of war, or in the course of war.

Also, it seems 90% of the people I have met in my life have been murderous bastards. See, I'm not wanted here. I'm not meant to be alive, I'm an evolutionary dead end. I'm faulty, and they hate me because of it, want me dead. That's how evolution works, right? The faulty elements must die before they breed, otherwise it brings in another generation of faulty beings. Such trials in life have made me very resilient, but it's me against most of the people i will ever meet. I don't expect to die a natural death, so I do all I can to improve things for other people like me while I'm still here. It isn't a nice way to live, but I suppose in a way I deserve it.

This evolutionary system is terrifyingly effective, but certainly not nice. Not ethical, not morally right. So why? Why do people have such faith in a species that is as successful as it is because it is cruel?

What history did you read?

90% of our time on pointless warfare? You do know people also eat, sleep, farm, build etc.?

Most tribal societies don't know war at all. This means that 95% of human history there wasn't any real war whatsoever as most of our history as humanity came into being 200.000 years ago. The first city came into being before 10.000 years ago. There would have been minor skirmishes at most before that.

Once cities and nations started springing up you did get wars and such. But in order to support those wars 90% of the population still had to work to produce food and materials, meaning those 90% didn't actually engage in any wars at all.

Even soldiers spend rather large amounts of times not actually waging war, even during wars. They mostly guard territory and serve as a deterrent to other armies. Only rarely is there actual battle. I'd be surprised if they spend more then 10% of their time actually fighting.

So basically 10% of the time, 10% of all people spend 10% of their time on warfare. Making that a grand 0,1%.

And 90% you've met are murderous? Do you live in a prison?

Evolution designed to kill off anyone that isn't a cruel selfish bastard? You do know that our evolutionary branch is almost completely specialized in social interaction, communication and teamwork? Extremely large portions of our brain are reserved purely for interaction with our own kind. We've developed empathy above and beyond any other species to allow us to feel things that others feel and to further our ability to work together.

Seriously, stop thinking with your tears. Slap yourself in the face and get some effing rationality going. This is just ridiculous.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

Because things always get (gradually) better. We've come from bigoted, warmongering, superstitious species a few thousand years ago to being (at least somewhat) open-minded, intelligent, weary of war/violence, etc. Its far from perfect, but in the end what most of us would consider to be the "good side" tends to win eventually, and world is constantly getting better ethically and practically. So yeah, faith in humanity is justified I believe.

 

[need4snacks]

Before i get started, i just want to say that I don't want this to come across as an emo thread, although I'm not feeling great at the moment, I largely just feel curious as to this:

Why do so many people have such faith in the "good" in humanity?

See, I've studied history alot. I've found that we seem to spend 90% of our time on pointless warfare. Even all those great steps we made; mostly made in the name of war, or in the course of war.

Also, it seems 90% of the people I have met in my life have been murderous bastards. See, I'm not wanted here. I'm not meant to be alive, I'm an evolutionary dead end. I'm faulty, and they hate me because of it, want me dead. That's how evolution works, right? The faulty elements must die before they breed, otherwise it brings in another generation of faulty beings. Such trials in life have made me very resilient, but it's me against most of the people i will ever meet. I don't expect to die a natural death, so I do all I can to improve things for other people like me while I'm still here. It isn't a nice way to live, but I suppose in a way I deserve it.

This evolutionary system is terrifyingly effective, but certainly not nice. Not ethical, not morally right. So why? Why do people have such faith in a species that is as successful as it is because it is cruel?

The early 20th century called, they want their Social Darwinism back!

 

[James Crook]

Sounds like you need an intervention. There's plenty of pleasant people knocking about but I can assure you most wouldn't associate with one who has such a pessimistic and cynical world view. Ah hohoho.

Is that an Adam Jensen GIF as your profile pic? XD

OP: Like the lobster said, there's a lot of nice people hanging around in the world, so don't go pessimistic about humanity on us :]

YES there's a lot of assholes in the world, but that's how it works, doesn't it?

 

[FuzzyRaccoon]

I have to ask, what is exactly wrong with you that so many people have such a visceral reaction to your presence?

More to my belief humanity is good. It's not really that humanity is good, or that it's evil. I personally love humanity because it is so varied. Whatever anyone says, I find humans to be unique and interesting creatures, each tempered by their personal experiences. I have to wonder why so many people have such a negative or blindly positive outlook. Can't something simply be, and be taken as it stands?

 

[bobtail123]

Think about it this way: Nobody thinks of themselves as the 'bad guy'. Sure there might be some people who know what they're doing is wrong but that's only on a smaller scale. In terms of warfare I can't think of a single conflict in the last century that where one side thought it was in the wrong but fought anyway.

Even wars that seem totally motivated by greed are fought because people think it is 'for the good of the country'. It's all to do with perspective, and while that does allow for people to do awful, awful things and believe they are right in doing so, at least take some solace in the fact that people almost always fight because they believe it is the right thing to do, even with the costs involved.

This is not good for other people affected by these conflicts but at least those causing the suffering believe they are in the right, which in my opinion is better than people doing things they think will only cause pain and suffering without any benefit. Its a sad way to look at things but it's a damn sight better than the alternatives.

 

[Realitycrash]

Look at five hundred years earlier. Look now. Improvement much?

Yes.

(And blah blah "But people are still assholes"-responses can just be quiet. People will always be assholes, but more equal, more humanized assholes).

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

Because if you just up and say we suck and that's the end of the story, it means you've given up in the battle to be better than that. And how the hell is giving up supposed to make anything better?

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Because if not us, then who?
Humanity is the only thing to have faith in.

To quote the British version of The Internationale:

"No saviour from on high delivers,
No faith have we in prince or peer.
Our own right hand the chains must shiver,
Chains of hatred, greed and fear."

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Because despite our constant warfare (and in some cases because of it) humanity has moved forward. We have progressed. We have made strides in exploring the universe around us. We can still be kind caring beings, despite the pointlessness of it all. Humanity still has the potential to achieve great things. We can make a rather large impact on the universe around us. In fact we already have. If we all work together, who knows the sort of shit we can pull off.

So from here on out, I'm doing my damnedest to make this a "Humanity, Fuck Yeah" thread.

 

[nukethetuna]

Why not? Different experiences shape different perspectives. Sorry that yours have been so negative, but if you're dead-set in your opinion, hearing someone else's probably won't change it. Get to know people and you might find that there are quite a few folks out there who are legitimately good, for whatever reason.

Also, a lot of History (especially in the media) focuses entirely on wars, when in reality, there's far more time where things were peaceful. Wars are usually monumental events of change for a society, though, that's why they're focused on so heavily.

 

[___________________]

Before i get started, i just want to say that I don't want this to come across as an emo thread, although I'm not feeling great at the moment, I largely just feel curious as to this:

Why do so many people have such faith in the "good" in humanity?

See, I've studied history alot. I've found that we seem to spend 90% of our time on pointless warfare. Even all those great steps we made; mostly made in the name of war, or in the course of war.

Also, it seems 90% of the people I have met in my life have been murderous bastards. See, I'm not wanted here. I'm not meant to be alive, I'm an evolutionary dead end. I'm faulty, and they hate me because of it, want me dead. That's how evolution works, right? The faulty elements must die before they breed, otherwise it brings in another generation of faulty beings. Such trials in life have made me very resilient, but it's me against most of the people i will ever meet. I don't expect to die a natural death, so I do all I can to improve things for other people like me while I'm still here. It isn't a nice way to live, but I suppose in a way I deserve it.

This evolutionary system is terrifyingly effective, but certainly not nice. Not ethical, not morally right. So why? Why do people have such faith in a species that is as successful as it is because it is cruel?

The majority of the world is filled with bastards. Those bastards have faith in their view of humanity because to them humans are all bastards and they enjoy being like that so they have faith in each other. The few that are true human beings and not irrational animals - that look like humans due to their fenotype - should have faith in each other even if they are scattered throughout the world and never end up meeting in most cases. Don't dread so much, there're humans out there amongst all these beasts. Emo? Why would you sound emo? And who cares. You feel like crap - you vent. That's it. Do whatever makes you happy and keep being nice. Don't turn into a bastard yourself. Listen to some music or something and cheer up.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

The problem isn't that people believe in the good in humanity, because humanity has shown itself to be capable of great things, but rather that they often don't also believe in the evil in humanity. Every major tragedy is followed by a huge number of people who are shocked that such a thing could have happened despite numerous past incidences of the exact same thing happening (fun fact: did you know that the holocaust was patterned very closely on the earlier and equally horrible Armenian genocide? Hitler even sold his staff on the idea by saying "no one cared when they did it to the Armenians"). The people who do this are the reason similar incidents are able to continuously recur, because they never believe that something like that could happen these days/where we live/to those people/etc.

Total pessimists who only believe in the evil are just as bad because they never actually get anything done.

 

[lobster1077]

Sounds like you need an intervention. There's plenty of pleasant people knocking about but I can assure you most wouldn't associate with one who has such a pessimistic and cynical world view. Ah hohoho.

Is that an Adam Jensen GIF as your profile pic? XD

OP: Like the lobster said, there's a lot of nice people hanging around in the world, so don't go pessimistic about humanity on us :]

YES there's a lot of assholes in the world, but that's how it works, doesn't it?

Aye, it is, four hours well spent animating it. Haha =D

 

[Therumancer]

Before i get started, i just want to say that I don't want this to come across as an emo thread, although I'm not feeling great at the moment, I largely just feel curious as to this:

Why do so many people have such faith in the "good" in humanity?

See, I've studied history alot. I've found that we seem to spend 90% of our time on pointless warfare. Even all those great steps we made; mostly made in the name of war, or in the course of war.

Also, it seems 90% of the people I have met in my life have been murderous bastards. See, I'm not wanted here. I'm not meant to be alive, I'm an evolutionary dead end. I'm faulty, and they hate me because of it, want me dead. That's how evolution works, right? The faulty elements must die before they breed, otherwise it brings in another generation of faulty beings. Such trials in life have made me very resilient, but it's me against most of the people i will ever meet. I don't expect to die a natural death, so I do all I can to improve things for other people like me while I'm still here. It isn't a nice way to live, but I suppose in a way I deserve it.

This evolutionary system is terrifyingly effective, but certainly not nice. Not ethical, not morally right. So why? Why do people have such faith in a species that is as successful as it is because it is cruel?

Well for one, we question our own flaws, just as your doing right now. Like it or not we do strive to overcome them, and we're quite successful at it. Every generation and society tends to be very critical of itself and what it does wrong, but in turn we become stronger. To put things into perspective, right now there are more people alive with a higher standard of living than ever before. Even in the second and third world the conditions tend to be better than they were during say the time of ancient egypt, or other societies where people were just as prone to starvation, disease, and violence, but had few of the benefits. Even a broken down village pump that still (barely) works is a miracle compared to what people had a thousand or so years ago.

The point isn't just the technology, it's about how at both our best and our worst we can compare ourselves to where we've been and see the improvement, very few people who go off about humanity in a general sense bother to look at it from that perspective. Our worst off are better off than the worst off of people a thousand years ago. The best off are well... incredible, and there are probably more people in the middle between those extremes who live pretty well than ever before.

Sure, we have an intense dark side, and plenty of petty cruelties, but don't let them blind you to everything else.

The old oriental Ying Yang symbol sort of depicts the balance between light and darkness, and well... all opposites. A key element of it is that you'll notice each "side" has a dot of the other in it. That pretty much says it all. Both good and evil exist in equal parts, and nothing is pure good or pure evil, both having a bit of the othr in them if you know where to look.