Why do people have such faith in humanity?

[Ocelano]

For me, it's Oscar Wilde's "The basis of optimism is sheer terror".

Or, mundanely put:

"They can't really be that stupid, can they?"

And in response to the mundane
"yes, yes we can"

 

[Palademon]

Because most people aren't teenagers crying on the internet.

Why is it that whenever something is depressing we sweep it under the rug?

Oh hey, that's like, so deep.

And because its not depressing. Good things happen, bad things happen. People should grow a pair of balls and stop thinking "woe is me" on a gaming forum.

In the case of humanity it's more like "woe is us" which is more of the problem.
But maybe yes, the key to happiness is to "grow a pair of balls" and not let bad things affect us, because afterall nothing can be that bad right? We obviously all just complain too much.

Again, amazingly deep. You should totally be a philosopher or something.

This is one thing I complained about in my post. People thinking of others opinions as defaultly wrong, and instead of trying to make them realise something they must've missed, something that if the person disagreeing is right must know, they'll just act condescending instead. I'm not tyring to make you feel bad. But you could see me as trying the same thing. Sorry.

Your point of "good things happen, bad things happen" is valid, and reasonable. What is your point of view if we aren't talking about one person's experience, but instead about feeling upset more about the state of suffering for everyone in the world?

Things are better than ever. If the (likely) middle-class (likely) white guy has such a problem he should go and do something about it, not whinge like an emo tween.

That's good advice.
Starting with that would've been good.
I think when people start threads like these it's usually an "Am I the only one" type thing where they want reassurance that someone else cares. Maybe their only way of trying to change things was being one of the many that try to spread this kind of awareness, but it's so obvious to people that they tire of hearing it and get annoyed, so it gives that person a response that just makes them more sad, which makes them feel alone, since everyone else knows, but to them they appear to not care.

I think I'm going to be sarcastic again now. So yes, how very deep of you.

I'm not trying to be deep or make myself look that way.
Wouldn't people acknowledging people like the OP's point of view, rather than dismissing it give them faith in humanity because they wouldn't feel alone? Couldn't you prove what they think is missing something, without just saying they're being stupid?

 

[razer17]

Oh dear. You have absolutely no clue as to what evolution and in specific natural selection is. This sort of thinking is very dangerous, assigning your own values and morals to things that do not have them.

I suggest you study evolution and natural selection in stead of history and you will see that people aren't inherently evil. Or good, for that matter.

And some people like the thought of humanity as a whole being "good", so they cling to that.

This would be perfectly valid reasoning but for two reasons: firstly, we are currently top of the evolutionary ladder, so at the minute we do not have enough threats for survival of the fittest to truly apply.

Secondly, our current technological prowess has even further slowed evolution, as anything we haven't got we create, and therefore evolution doesn't step in to plug the gaps, as it were.



Anyhow, this sort of stuff really annoys me. Hur dur evil humanity. Hur dur I think I'm like the only good human. No. Humanity isn't bad. If we ignore the fact that morality is pretty much a human concept that does indeed spit in the face of natural selection, and thattherefore we are only good or evil because we have classified it. Most humans are decent. They are neither really virtuous, nor are they evil. They go through life without really leaning either way, so that's the first reason why humanity isn't bad.

Secondly, a massive problem is the fact that only the bad news gets reported. The news is so massively skewed in favour of negative events that it colours our view of humanity to be less positive. So the news might show you a story about a man who killed his family, but that's just one man. Does it show you the hundreds of others who performed little acts of kindness? OF course not. It doesn't even show some of the big acts of kindness that happen everyday.

Then there's the fact that the people in a higher position, your CEO's, politicians etc. are more likely to be "bad" in some way. A study showed that CEO's had a huge increase in the rate of sociopathy compared to average people. This is because the people who usually get into the higher positions in society are less scrupulous than others, and find it easier to propel themselves.

Another thing is that this site seems to have a hell of a lot of people who "hate" humanity or think humanity is evil. I think that may be to do with the fact that a lot of the people on these forums were or are bullied, and this makes them think of the entire of humanity with a little more contempt than usual.

So anyway, I do believe that humanity is mostly good. I don't let a few jerks paint the rest of humanity. I actually get really annoyed by people constantly saying humanity is evil and the like.

 

[Samuel Lombardo]

For me, it's Oscar Wilde's "The basis of optimism is sheer terror".

Or, mundanely put:

"They can't really be that stupid, can they?"

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein

 

[Dragunai]

Fine you spend your life ignoring the "glaringly obvious" then. Just so you never have to adjust your world view.

Right, so your original point was that the news reports bad shit and you provided this statement in such a way that it was pretty obviously designed to offend.

Now you're stamping your feet because I looked at it and threw it out like the garbage it was?
Make a valid, worthwhile point and stop wasting my time and I will take you seriously.

My world view is based on reality, something everyone else in this thread is doing their best to avoid as they paint rainbows with kittens smiles.

The world isn't a happy fun place, we just do an amazing job of blocking out the misery with our own selfish intentions.

 

[rankfx]

I don't really know if I have faith in people to do the right thing or not, but I get the feeling in a couple of years you won't be so worried about it. Just support the people who do the right thing and look after yourself. I try to be a good person and I think others do to.

 

[Ocelano]

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?

EDIT: hmm. I didn't expect such a strongly aggressive response. Not here, anyway. I knew this would get some flak, but I hoped I was asking a question that is rarely asked; people always ask about having no faith in humanity, but rarely about having faith. I was curious, like I said. Sorry to have offended so many if you.

Ok first point war isn't pointless.
mankind instinctively realizes its own overabundance and acknowledges that large portions of its membership must be culled for the long term survival of the whole.

At least that's what I choose to believe as its the only argument that makes sense to me other than the one which goes sociopaths use their highly trained fake people skills to get into positions of power so they can cause mass atrocities in the same way that lesser ones become serial killers. But that argument sounds a littler far fetched even to me. If you want to believe in wars on principal than you have to be ready to believe that a bunch of people believed in a black haired midget talking about the supremity of the 6 foot blonde blue eyed people and then following him in to massacre anyway. Which makes no sense at all to me

As for your point on the nasty vindictiveness of the mass of humanity I'm right with you on that poinht

 

[Wieke]

Nobody mentioned Carl Segan yet?! Let me rectify it:


Also check out George R. Price [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_R._Price], a population geneticist who wrote what is still widely held to be the best mathematical, biological and evolutionary representation of altruism. It basically shows that being altruistic is beneficial for a species. So we aren't good out of the kindness of our hearts, we're good because it improves our chances of survival (as a species). (A truly selfish species should consist of self-less individuals.)

 

[CupboardNinja]

If you don't have any hope for humanity there's something wrong with your outlook, not mine. Humanity's at a much better point than it has ever been. And what's with the "it seems 90% of the people I have met in my life have been murderous bastards"? You do come across as an emo, but even more so, you come across as an idiot.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

I'm going to skip out facepalming my nose into a bloody mush and just go right to a more philosophical point.

War doesn't make man evil. It makes some men evil, but then there are cases like the Nazi officer that stepped in front of a Lithuanian who was about to execute a Jewish woman. A Polish policeman who, during a raid on the Warsaw ghetto to round up women and children, found an attic with twenty frightened Jews staring at him as he looked into it, and told the German officer below him that no-one was there.

I'm fairly sure I must have wasted a part of my life writing this out though.

 

[Indeterminacy]

So why do you believe people want you to die?

Oh, this belief is fairly easy to justify. There are people who starve to death. As long as this is a fact in our world, and we continue to support the status quo of a capitalistic structure in society, we can deduce that humanity passively tolerates this as an acceptable cost of retaining our current techniques and philosophical frameworks for the distribution of finite resources.

It's not a far jump to take this personally. That is, if you were in the same situation as the people who currently die, the world around you would just as passively let you do so.

Also, you are meant to be here. If you were not, you would not be here. It is as simple as that.

It's also the worst kind of bad faith in the herd. Accidents happen in society. Sometimes, as you will find out if you ever happen to get a job and observe your colleagues for a while, they happen with shocking regularity. And it's that society that drives the meaning behind the initial existence of other human beings.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Wait, people have faith in humanity? First I heard of it. I for one hate humans, the f*ckers. That's why I live in a society badgers, who have banned all forms of daytime television and non-factual news. Although they do have a tendency to sacrifice virgins on an alter to an oddly shaped leaf someone found on the side of a road.

OT: There is no good, there is no bad, there is what benefits you and that's all we humans care about. We aren't selfish, selfishness is just a term, and like most terms it means very little outside an individual's mind. Wow, that's a bit bleak.

 

[Doomcat]

Honestly i don't know why people have so much faith in humanity either, theres alot of people out there who are quite bad...at the same time though there ARE good people, i've met a few of both.

Just look at it this way: as a whole, we're not that nice (i think) but there are individuals who are quite good people.

 

[ThetaNova]

There's plenty of good [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Heartwarming/RealLife] in the world. About as much good as there is bad.

Unfortunatley there is also retarded, which means that less than half of the worlds population is "good".

 

[Indeterminacy]

My world view is based on reality, something everyone else in this thread is doing their best to avoid as they paint rainbows with kittens smiles.

The world isn't a happy fun place, we just do an amazing job of blocking out the misery with our own selfish intentions.

I think your position is "practical", and probably grounded in more experience of the world than most people here. Does that make it "reality", any more than one informed by media hysteria or mindless optimism?

The "real world" is the one you live in, where you make your home, eat your supper and work your way from point A to point B. If you want to give that world a lick of cosmetic, optimistic paint that maybe wasn't there when you moved in, I don't see why that is a problem. Heck, it might be what makes the difference between you getting up in the morning or not.

 

[Xanadu84]

People who think that Humanity are a bunch of evil wretches, affronts to the natural order, understand evolution about as well as creationists. Seriously, the animal kingdon...sucks. I am not exaggerating when I say that in comparison to the animal kingdom, Hitler was a philanthropist. The only reason any animal out there hasn't committed more genocide is because they don't have guns. Animals kill and eat babies without hesitation, the only boarder between them is rape is the possibility of getting more sex if they arn't rapists, are short sighed, self destructive, stupid assholes incapable of the kind of higher thought that inspires murderous tyrants to at least commit atrocities out of a sense of well-intentioned extremism. Even a depraved, insane serial killer who murders children has the kind of social conscious that makes them justify there actions, to themselves at least. From that amoral hell comes a species that pays taxes to support a social structure, a species that has adapted remarkably similar moral codes worldwide, a species whose primary activity beyond survival is entertainment that almost universally encourages some kind of ethical worldview, a species that, in a relative blink of an eye, the imperceptibly small time period of a few decades, managed to take the primal urge that has been the singular point of existence of life for billions of years, the urge to exploit and undermine those beings that are too genetically dissimilar from you, and made that urge a universally unacceptable (If still unconciously practiced to some extent) evil that we now view as the stupid, brutish act of racism. In a cold, uncaring, indifferent world, it is absolutely no surprise that billions of people would assume that the only way such a mind-boggling push towards good could possibly come to pass is an omnipotent, loving god.

The fact that people can lose faith in humanity, look around at the bile from which we rose, and the relative splendor to which we have ascended, and shake there head in dismay and say, "This is not enough" is more then enough proof that the fundamental goodness of humanity is staggering enough to break a man's sanity.

 

[Indeterminacy]

The fact that people can lose faith in humanity, look around at the bile from which we rose, and the relative splendor to which we have ascended, and shake there head in dismay and say, "This is not enough" is more then enough proof that the fundamental goodness of humanity is staggering enough to break a man's sanity.

But people Don't, as a matter of generality, subscribe to this. People are, more often than not, content to work 9-5 in dead end jobs to support their weekend clubbing habits where they spend more time than not in self-destruction mode.

 

[dvd_72]

Well if I don't have faith that humanity can be good, why would I bother trying really? Faith in human goodness is what keeps me from falling into apathetic despair and punching every person I see for no better reason than that they must be an ass.

I've met plenty of good people in my relativily short life. I'm sorry your life has been so hard and I find it disgusting how you've been treated. We're not all bad, honest