this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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Mildly Interesting
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Despite the horrid things that occur in this world, I do believe that people are fundamentally good and want to do good for the people around them. The people that do evil things were not born that way.
Sociopaths exist and they rule the world.
Probably some narcissists too
Yep, the majority are good people that assume others are good people too. And they get ruthlessly exploited by sociopaths that end up ruling everyone and forcing all of us to live our lives along their zero-sum worldview.
Don't underestimate the corruptive influence of power and privilege either. I know it's unpopular to humanize the people who ruthlessly exploit others, but they aren't necessarily innately selfish, and are just as much a product of circumstance as others. The wealthy are perhaps the most alienated from the material and human cost of their wealth by a system that is designed to do so, and they are rewarded for behaving selfishly.
If you reduce the complexity of the world to "most people are good but the few bad people ruin it for everyone," then you run the risk of thinking that the solution to the problem is to remove the "bad people" from power and replace them with "good people." You'll inevitably be disappointed when the "good people" turn out to be "bad people" after experiencing power and privilege.
In my experience, the vast majority of people are good. Like 99.9% of them. But there's still evil people in this world. My grandmother is one, she's tried killing my siblings twice, (the first time looked like negligence, after the second she wasn't given another chance.) and gave her husband brain damage. Thankfully, she's not related to us by blood.