Current Events > Human Nature Poll (Are we primarily "Good" or "Bad"?)

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This is something that crosses my mind often and it draws from many different things (i.e. religion, politics, science).

Where does a sense of morality come from?

From a scientific perspective, it is all survival of the fittest/evolution/etc., then deep down wouldn't it make sense for a majority of people to lack morality when it comes to survival? (i.e. Why should I help you when I need...)

It seems unnatural and forced for a lot of people to care about others. This can be seen clearly in politics, crossing the liberal/conservative line and even religion. So what about the people who genuinely do care?

I don't think there's a definitive answer, but does anyone else think about this with the direction of the world as it is right now?

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Silver Bearings posted...

It seems unnatural

Humans are clearly supernatural beings then, lmao

We're selfish more than we're not, to the extent that it causes us to be good (or at least, not bad) and band against the bad ones; laws, law enforcement, and self-defenders are more prevalent than thieves and murderers.

The general term is Social Contract. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
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Bump. Any other thoughts?

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Silver Bearings posted...

From a scientific perspective, it is all survival of the fittest/evolution/etc., then deep down wouldn't it make sense for a majority of people to lack morality when it comes to survival? (i.e. Why should I help you when I need...)

Since the dawn of humanity, communalism has defined us. We have prehistoric evidence of early humans taking care of the sick in their tribe. It has always been the case that we survive as a unit, not as individual members. We are not solitary creatures, but tribal. Since that time we have added many layers of complexity, and for the most part this means we have enhanced our ability to care for the poor and ill. The idea that social darwinism can be enforced, justified, or is somehow a return to the natural order is foolish and has no basis in reality.

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We are inherently "good" based on our instinctual need to survive. Doing bad things will lead us to death in most cases, so we try to do "good" for the benefit of ourselves and the ones we care for. If we were immortal then we wouldn't care about good or bad.

On average humans are inherently good, insofar as they won't randomly murder people for no reason. Think of all the time you needed to ask for direcions and a friendly stranger gave them to you, no problem.

It's just that to lead or have power, you need a certain degree of ruthlessness and since they get all the attention, it can lead to misrepresentation of humanity as a whole.

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We are primarily selfish tribes, which can lead to both good and bad things. Altruims with in groups, conflict with out groups.

However within increasingly complex society, and collective capabilities to affect the world and global life, both humans and other lifeforms, our tribal instinct clash so hard it give birth to most of our modern problems.

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Chaotic neutral 4 lyfe

I'm both good and bad depending on what I feel like at any given moment, or how I gauge the intelligence of whoever I'm speaking to.

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Final bump. I'm enjoying the points being made so far.

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Other: Slightly more good than bad.

Even with how awful shit can get, the fact that we can maintain large-scale infrastructure indefinitely means we literally cannot all be backstabbing Skaven.

Oh, also, altruism is an evolved-for trait, contrary to early aughts postulations. Otherwise, again, a tribe could not function for very long.

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