Lollypockets said:I think in children it's human nature in the raw, obvious state - we just grow up and learn to hide it better
JerryB said:'Human nature'? One would have to ask if any such thing existed. And let's not forget that, if humans were so bad, there would be no society in the first place.
shonda said:I like animals as much as the next person but really they are worse than we are. I once watched baby turtles canniblize an injured sibling.
But how is that worse than humans blowing each other up with bombs (for example)? It doesn't make the turtles any worse morally than humans. The moment that turtle became injured it was classed as "non-viable" - a burden and a threat to the others as it may attract predators. To them, it is a life or death situation. Is that better or worse than blowing someone up because they think differently to you?shonda said:I like animals as much as the next person but really they are worse than we are. I once watched baby turtles canniblize an injured sibling.
Is that better or worse than blowing someone up because they think differently to you?
Dana said:In my experience people are basically selfish and cruel. They just conform to what society expects because it makes life easier to do so. Given the chance to hurt someone else with impunity, I believe most people would just because they had that power. Usually there's a choice to either consider others at little inconvenience to yourself or be flagrantly insensitive. Time and again I've seen people do the latter once they could get away with it.
If murder, theft even sexual offences were not punishable by law - how many people would control their baser instincts out of "the goodness of their hearts"? From my observation and experience - not a whole lot.
Dana said:In my experience people are basically selfish and cruel. They just conform to what society expects because it makes life easier to do so. Given the chance to hurt someone else with impunity, I believe most people would just because they had that power. Usually there's a choice to either consider others at little inconvenience to yourself or be flagrantly insensitive. Time and again I've seen people do the latter once they could get away with it.
If murder, theft even sexual offences were not punishable by law - how many people would control their baser instincts out of "the goodness of their hearts"? From my observation and experience - not a whole lot.
Dana said:In my experience people are basically selfish and cruel. They just conform to what society expects because it makes life easier to do so. Given the chance to hurt someone else with impunity, I believe most people would just because they had that power. Usually there's a choice to either consider others at little inconvenience to yourself or be flagrantly insensitive. Time and again I've seen people do the latter once they could get away with it.
If murder, theft even sexual offences were not punishable by law - how many people would control their baser instincts out of "the goodness of their hearts"? From my observation and experience - not a whole lot.
Dana said:This is why I love FT. So many interesting and intelligent responses. All points well taken.
I still believe though that the underlying motive for most people's actions is selfishness. People are "good" when it suits them, when society praises them for it, when they think god will reward them etc. etc. It's all about what they get from it. Remove all the rewards and constraints, and I think people would rather just do what they want.
Dana said:I still believe though that the underlying motive for most people's actions is selfishness. People are "good" when it suits them, when society praises them for it, when they think god will reward them etc. etc. It's all about what they get from it. Remove all the rewards and constraints, and I think people would rather just do what they want.
Meanderer said:Please don't take this the wrong way Dana, it's just the obvious question that springs to mind when reading your last post - do you, personally, only do something for somebody else when you feel you will profit from it? Have you never done something for someone just because it needed doing, or because you knew it would make life a little better for them?
Meanderer said:Please don't take this the wrong way Dana, it's just the obvious question that springs to mind when reading your last post - do you, personally, only do something for somebody else when you feel you will profit from it? Have you never done something for someone just because it needed doing, or because you knew it would make life a little better for them?
Pietro_Mercurios said:"But then there are always the mentally deranged, psychotic, individuals who want more than everybody else, no matter that they've already got more than enough."
There is an older (1980's?) book called "The Mountain People" which if I remember correctly, chronicled an anthropologist's observation of the decline of a (tribe?) of Ethopian or Eritrean natives. Apparently due to a prolonged famine, they went from an orderly, compassionate, joyful society to a group of people who stole food from their own children, laughed at and scolded their kids while their kids lay starving in the dirt and then remorselessly threw their children's wasted carcasses in the trash heap. This drastic change happened in the space of five or ten years I think. And throughout these people's ordeal I presume the anthropologist author was busily taking pictures and notes and munching protien bars. I don't remember him even once mentioning that he tried to help anbody. He interviewed plenty of them though, and went on to write an acclaimed book about their suffering. We can't be basically good. I think we just do what we think we're supposed to. At best, our species' good - bad ratio is 50/50.
Uganda's Infamous 'Selfish' Tribe Has Been Misunderstood For Almost 40 Years
The Ik people of Uganda are a small mountain community with a big reputation. Except there are researchers who now think that reputation is wholly undeserved.
In the 1960s, a prominent anthropologist by the name of Colin Turnbull published a book that described the Ik people as extraordinarily 'unfriendly', 'uncharitable', and 'mean'. He named them "the loveless people".
Today, new research suggests this small ethnic group is no more self-serving than any other community struggling under a famine.
In fact, far from breeding a culture of selfishness, the Ik are normally just as generous and cooperative as the rest of us. Turnbull simply caught them at a time when resources were running dangerously low.
"Turnbull's claim that the Ik have a culture of selfishness can be rejected," the authors of the new study write.
"Cooperative norms are resilient, and the consensus among scholars that humans are remarkably cooperative and that human cooperation is supported by culture can remain intact."
Using an experimental game which tests a person's generosity, researchers at Rutgers found the Ik are, on average, no less magnanimous than the hundreds of other people around the world who have played the same game. ...
Abstract
According to Turnbull's 1972 ethnography The Mountain People, the Ik of Uganda had a culture of selfishness that made them uncooperative. His claims contrast with two widely accepted principles in evolutionary biology, that humans cooperate on larger scales than other species and that culture is an important facilitator of such cooperation. We use recently collected data to examine Ik culture and its influence on Ik behaviour. Turnbull's observations of selfishness were not necessarily inaccurate but they occurred during a severe famine. Cooperation re-emerged when people once again had enough resources to share. Accordingly, Ik donations in unframed Dictator Games are on par with average donations in Dictator Games played by people around the world. Furthermore, Ik culture includes traits that encourage sharing with those in need and a belief in supernatural punishment of selfishness. When these traits are used to frame Dictator Games, the average amounts given by Ik players increase. Turnbull's claim that the Ik have a culture of selfishness can be rejected. Cooperative norms are resilient, and the consensus among scholars that humans are remarkably cooperative and that human cooperation is supported by culture can remain intact.
I worked for Dr. Turnbull in high school as a volunteer. He was a brilliant, funny and compassionate man, and his book The Forest People is a classic and is still used. He actually went out to do field work as an ethnomusicologist, and ended up as a six-foot Scots tatooed member of the Ituri pygmy tribe. It's unfortunate that he got to the Ik at the worst possible time and they obviously didn't like each other. Later in life he was not comfortable with that book. I just want to note that he was not a bad person, far from it, and I recommend The Forest People as an antidote.Update for clarification and closure ...
The book was The Mountain People by Colin Turnbull, published in 1972. The people he studied during the mid-Sixties were the Ik people of Uganda. Turnbull studied them during a period of famine brought on by displacement, raiding by other groups, and drought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ik_people
Moving on ...
Newly published research has demonstrated the Ik people are no more self-serving (or less generous) than other groups worldwide.
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/anthro...-uganda-and-find-they-re-actually-decent-folk
There was a quote I heard in School, from a Roman Historian (I think) lamenting on society - "in the past there were few laws and few criminals, now we have are many laws and many criminals". Some-one put me straight ?
That quote has been attributed to Cicero, but I can't locate a direct citation to prove it.
It reminds me of this:I've heard versions of it before - often used by Libertarian types.
Can't help thinking that it's a bit of a logical fallacy - or, at least, often applied in a way that makes it so. If you don't have the law in the first place then of course, technically speaking, it can't be broken - doesn't mean people aren't out there doing that shit. It's a bit like the idea that the less medical testing you do, the less cases of a disease you'll have - which some other great thinker came up with. Forget who.