# Do you think that humanity is inherently good or bad?



## FloridaGuy48 (Jun 30, 2014)

Do you think that humanity is inherently good or bad?


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## ScorchedEarth (Jul 12, 2014)

Inherently bad, but goes for other animals too. Well, there's no objective good or evil, but the fact is we're glorified apes that fight for resources, bully, rape, enslave and murder for reasons that sadly make sense from an evolutionary standpoint. The machine I'm typing this on very likely had slave labor involved at some point in its manufacture and that thought isn't going to stay with me for another 10 minutes.


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## jojy1 (May 31, 2021)

I think that we’re all inherently bad but trying to be good. The majority of people that have been in my life always become toxic and bad. I’ve met a few genuinely good people, but the bad outweigh the good in my experience


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## CNikki (Aug 9, 2013)

If we're talking on a greater scale with morality and philosophy then good and bad are subjective and not universal. What may be considered as good in one group/society can be considered as very bad in another. For that I'm going to go with neither. 

From a more individualistic perspective, we can have a mix of good and bad that can be presented to the world. Many people put on facades that can make them seem better than what the reality may be (narcissists are masters at convincing others with their charms for it) and it can be seen through different individuals encountered seeing different sides/perspectives of that person. While it is once again subjective, it shows the innate nature of how humans want approval, which can be good, and to what expense it will take for some to gain it, where bad can come in if harm is being done.


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## zonebox (Oct 22, 2012)

My perspective on the matter shifts, it really depends on the day and my mood how I feel about people in general. One thing that is constant though, is I would rather be away from most people.


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## jojy1 (May 31, 2021)

zonebox said:


> My perspective on the matter shifts, it really depends on the day and my mood how I feel about people in general. One thing that is constant though, is I would rather be away from most people.


LOL 😂…….yep, what Zonebox said!!!


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## Dissonance (Dec 27, 2011)

I would say that for me personally I tried impartial to morality, tried real hard to believe it didn't exist and winded up hurting someone with just the mere words of that cold heartlessness. In the end the thing that tethers me to my humanity is the fact that what pain on others I may do, for me personally it comes back at me as emotional pain, karma, regret, and I just hate injustice in general.

Can I be a piece of **** when it comes to being selfish? Kind of but it has it's limits as I do have empathy for others. It really depends what emotional cords play at my heart as I think I can think something is right emotionally but logically I know it's bad.


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## Blue Dino (Aug 17, 2013)

I think we're a clean slate for the most part. Obviously the younger we are, the more our environment shapes us. Although there are the very rarities where a person with a positive environment will still somehow fall into very sadistically deviant behavior. I guess those are the people aren't born with a "clean slate".


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

I don't care enough to really think about it in some philosophical sense and I mostly don't believe in an objective good/bad too. So the rest is personal preference.

Humans have destructive instincts, this can usually be argued against until you consider certain groups of people that most people look down on and react to with violent ideation (like pedophiles,) I don't consider that to be a positive/good trait even though it's super common. Most people would argue that reaction is good though right. So then you have the subjectivity.

I think environment can mitigate the destructive tendencies to varying degrees for different people. For some people it won't at all. Also it's probably easier to shape behaviour than anything else.

I think controlling for the numbers of Humans which is ridiculously large, and the interaction with 'intelligence' I'd probably rank us above the other great apes except bonobos. I think bonobos are better than us. But trees are better than most living things. And again that's subjective.


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## andy1984 (Aug 18, 2006)

good and bad is my knee jerk answer.

but yeah nothing is inherently good or bad lol. and humanity is an over-generalisation, I dont think it makes much sense. morality is a way to tell people apart more than it is a way to lump them all together.

although if you're talking about the average, that's gonna be bad, because what is moral is generally an exception to what is normal. if it was just the normal or easy thing then it doesnt have any merit really.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

I would have to think of myself as inherently good in order to judge the entire human race as inherently bad. Or, perhaps not. But if I acknowledged that I myself am inherently as bad as all the rest, what would even be the point of putting everyone else under one blanket?

I'm being silly, of course. I think our goodness or badness is irrelevant to the majority of universe. It doesn't even know we exist (because it can't). We are "blessed" with the gift of self-awareness. Given to us by the rotten apple from the malevolent snake.


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## either/or (Apr 27, 2020)

I think there are good individuals but humanity in it's aggregate is decidedly not good. We've completely trashed the Earth, we've engaged in countless wars over wealth, power and resources that have resulted in millions of deaths, we exploit each other unfairly via the political and economic systems we've created, we've annihilated countless species, we threaten most of the ones remaining including those with high degrees of both intelligence and emotional awareness like elephants and gorillas, and we mistreat the ones we raise to feed ourselves. We have not been good citizens or shephards of this planet.

Humans are awe-inspiring in the power we possess but we have absolutely no idea how to use this power ethically or purposefully.


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

I can understand how people that may have been bullied or mistreated think that most people are terrible and are out to get them. Plus of course it gives them a legitimate excuse (in their own minds) to hide away even more from people.

Most people aren't out to get you. They're just living their lives - having families, doing whatever they do, getting by.

It's interesting that topics like this only ever come up on sites like this - or in avoidant personality groups. People just generally trying to rationalise their fear of other people.


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## truant (Jul 4, 2014)

I don't call them murder apes for nothing!

If you're the right kind of person, or know the right kind of people, many people will be good to you. If you're the wrong kind of person, or know the wrong kind of people, many people will be bad to you. In both cases, people are acting naturally, based on their inherent tendencies.

Think it was pretty ****ty to design a world where organisms have to eat each other to survive. That's the real evil here.


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## Tetragammon (Jun 2, 2015)

I dislike a "good or bad" debate on ANY topic because those terms are highly subjective and typically informed by belief and value systems that I categorically reject. "Good" or "bad" according to who, exactly? 

The dichotomy between "good" and "bad" is too extreme to generalize humanity with IMO; I personally believe that the vast majority of people are neither good nor bad, and that that's okay. Moreover, I feel like the classification of people into categories of "good" or "bad" creates a self-fulfilling prophecy situation: being labelled "bad" can lead an otherwise good person to do bad things simply because they feel like they can never live down that negative label. On the flipside, being labelled "good" can go to a person's head and grossly inflate their ego, which can lead to bad behavior. 

I also believe that people who do bad things can't always help it. Of course everyone has choices but who can say to what degree those choices are influenced by biological and/or environmental factors? Some philosophers posit that "free will" is actually an illusion because everything we do is directly influenced by our pasts, and while I wouldn't go quite that far I think they have a valid point.


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## Einstein's ghost. (Jun 2, 2021)

To question our morality would be to question the morality of life, we're basically the same as all other life as regards primal instincts.

Only we have the intelligence to get more creative & elaborate with the good or bad should we be so inclined making it seem worse, to the curse... or gift that is our conscience & higher self awareness.

It's all subjective & in the end, blue M&M, red M&M, they all wind up the same color. 💩


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## Persephone The Dread (Aug 28, 2010)

I don't like the fascism. Let's call it that. A personality type. Not going to elaborate much but one dimension of it is you can go on twitter and find many many people typing basically this exactly:

'we need a war'

Not even because they're bored that I understand perfectly, but because they stumbled on a tiktok video of a teenager or young adult with piercings and dyed hair talking about LGBT stuff. It doesn't concern them but they don't understand the terminology or what's being discussed, a fact they bring up repeatedly 'I don't understand' 'wtf did they say' and that fact seems to make them want to convince themselves that what's being discussed isn't important and should then make them angry. So peppered in between the insults on appearance because they have dyed hair and weird piercings, status, you know chimpanzee ****, there's also 'we need gas chambers' and 'they should kill themselves' and various dehumanising language.

So obligatory:






But also it really reminds you that Humans are apes (well actually no it doesn't because the linguistic equivalent of beating someone to death in some ways seems worse to me probably because we do both.) The people they hate so much are usually very similar to me but slightly different in how they present + younger. There are entire twitter pages devoted to it. I'm pretty glad I had some years where the internet wasn't like that.

And if you're the opposite of this person I'm sure you'll find people saying that about people like you too.

We'll pay for this hatred too but it will be deserved.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

harrison said:


> It's interesting that topics like this only ever come up on sites like this - or in avoidant personality groups. People just generally trying to rationalise their fear of other people.


 Oh I don't think anyone needs an excuse to fear other people. I think that most people have to be trained to not fear other people despite having every good reason to fear them. Oddly, though, most people probably fear the wrong people. People tend to fear strangers and usually it's the people you trust you should actually fear.


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## thomasjune (Apr 7, 2012)

I grew up seeing people stab each other in the back over nonsense. Even/or especially people who supposedly love and care about each other. I'm not any better than they are so not sure if we're bad or good. I do know that I have trust issues. Of course I can only speak about my own little world and the people around me.

Also I'm well aware that most people aren't 'out to get me' and I'm not trying to rationalize anything. My SAD is my issue to deal with and I don't blame anyone nor do I hate anyone for my anxiety issues.
Avoidant personality doesn't always mean you hate people.


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

WillYouStopDave said:


> Oh I don't think anyone needs an excuse to fear other people. I think that most people have to be trained to not fear other people despite having every good reason to fear them. Oddly, though, most people probably fear the wrong people. People tend to fear strangers and usually it's the people you trust you should actually fear.


That would be where we disagree. I don't think most people should be feared at all. Do you honestly think most people go around hurting others? Most people are pretty decent in actual fact. I think people that actually do horrible things are the exception to the rule.

_[Removed]_


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## Pechorin (Mar 3, 2020)

I think we're malleable creatures. Our behaviours will depend on a number of factors and it's often difficult (impossible, even) to discern the degree to which each factor influences us. I'd err more on the side of nurture than nature in a lot of cases, but I'm far from certain. 

The question also presupposes a theory of ethics. How can you answer it without having some idea of what "good" and "bad" mean? That leads to another (arguably insoluble) problem. 

I think questions like this are usually answered in a way that suits a particular political agenda. If human beings are inherently "bad" according to a cultural understanding of "bad" (selfish, greedy, violent etc), this may be used to justify certain social arrangements: the State, Capitalism, Fascism, Militarism etc. If human beings are inherently "good", perhaps this lends itself to less State intrusion, more co-operative forms of living etc. How often do you hear people say "well, x is good _in theory_, but human nature just wouldn't allow it to work in practice." 

I think the best evidence points towards human beings living in a variety of different ways, displaying different behaviours and holding different values. It's my view that material and social conditions play a major role in this, rather than it flowing straight from "human nature". Human beings are complex and even two people growing up in the same neighbourhood (hell, the same household) can emerge as two very different people. No two lives are identical.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

harrison said:


> It's interesting that topics like this only ever come up on sites like this - or in avoidant personality groups. People just generally trying to rationalise their fear of other people.


 I don't know. It seems like a slightly bigger debate than a few avoidant people trying to rationalize their fear of other people to me....










I think people have asked the same question since the beginning of time. I'm pretty sure there were no internet social anxiety forums prior to about 1990. Fundamental questions about the nature of humans seem a bit older than that.


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## lavignesabine (Apr 15, 2021)

Good but we live in a system that rewards the parts of people that cause suffering such as selfishness. People are inherently good but many are fighting to survive leading them to have to put themselves first in ways they wouldn't if they weren't forced to. In my opinion, this society makes people more calloused and insensitive to wrong. Sometimes people do good for the wrong people so they believe that everyone is like that person and stop supporting people in the way they would have before, even if a person that comes for them to help is not like the other person, they are still guarded of what they have to give. The people that don't receive help become resentful, and this negative emotion will cause them to not be good to others in their lives or themselves. This is just an example but I think all the negativity and bad in humanity comes from a negative cycle like this. I think that people are inherently good.


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## Unforgiven17 (Apr 15, 2016)

Good. 

But the bad usually make the most noise.


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## NormalPerson69 (Jun 28, 2021)

Good. If it wasnt, it wouldnt exist. Its just a part of everything else, balancing the universe, regardless of what it does. Not only that, but we deserve to exist. Millions of years of hard evolutionary work, and we are the result. Hopefully we dont frick it up...is swearing aloud here?


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## mt moyt (Jul 29, 2015)

.


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## SplendidBob (May 28, 2014)

I think everyone is walking around with a whole lot of unresolved trauma. They are doing the best they can, in whatever ways they can based on the scripts that are running in their heads that they don't have a great deal of say over. 

My position is that we are a collection of schemas, patterns and behaviours created by our past experiences, and genes, with a "cherry on the top" bit of consciousness that convinces us we are acting of our own free choice and lets us nudge ourselves in various directions if we try really ****ing hard. Had we been raised by the neighbour instead of our ****ty parents? (in my case).

So even when people are behaving badly, they are likely performing to the best of their ability based on the limitations of their software.

People are, more or less, constructs based on their genetics, and the patterns instilled in them by other people (who are also thusly created). It's a vaguely sad repeating pattern of trauma, and maladaptive behaviour, but people, for the most part, are actually doing their best.

That's about as realistic as I can make it, and as charitable, even though I'm not at my most compassionate right now.


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## extremly (Oct 25, 2012)

SplendidBob said:


> I think everyone is walking around with a whole lot of unresolved trauma. They are doing the best they can, in whatever ways they can based on the scripts that are running in their heads that they don't have a great deal of say over.
> 
> My position is that we are a collection of schemas, patterns and behaviours created by our past experiences, and genes, with a "cherry on the top" bit of consciousness that convinces us we are acting of our own free choice and lets us nudge ourselves in various directions if we try really ****ing hard. Had we been raised by the neighbour instead of our ****ty parents? (in my case).
> 
> ...


Couldn't have said it better. I will also point out that "the game of life" evolutionary speaking has been a dangerous and very zero-sum-game competition. The closer you get to what we classically know as "nature" the more brutal it gets. So it makes sense our evolutionary path has selected for some traits that are "evil" but useful for surviving and reproducing. A lot of sociopathy, rage, violence can be found in every single one of our genetics... but luckily also enough intelligence to be self-aware of what is right, wrong, destructive, constructive. But is of limited use, a lot of the times. I like to think of humans as the fictional Vulcans before they managed to control their emotions. Given our genetic characteristics, the best we can do is what we have done, that is create a culture and a social contract with one another not to initiate violence.






Maybe we stopped facing certain death from other animals and from our environment. But the eternal competition that is evolution continues among humans in what we like to call "society" it has different rules, but its nothing but another nature setting, another environment to test whom among us can survive and thrive. Now is more sophisticated but, it doesn't mean sociopathy, intellect and ruthlessness are any less in demand to survive and reproduce.


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## asittingducky (Apr 23, 2013)

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## Canadian Brotha (Jan 23, 2009)

In most scenarios SA is a weakness & most species when they see weakness in another exploit that too their advantage & too the detriment of the weak one…not sure if that is inherently good or bad, more just a fact of nature, but of course it feels terrible


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## bad baby (Jun 10, 2013)

I think most people learn from a young age to have personal boundaries, to self-advocate, self-protect, see themselves as worthy beings, and find ways to fulfil their own needs and wants. They go out into the world carrying these tools/knowledge and carve a space out for themselves. With social anxiety, we never learned a lot of those things, and when we go out in the world it can feel unfairly stacked against us.

I don't think many people are aware of the importance of those things - when these things work, they're invisible and taken for granted; when they don't work, it's hard to pinpoint what's wrong exactly, usually it takes situations of injustice or inequality to really bring out the problem, and then people would focus on the injustice itself without noticing that the victim is also dealing with it in an ineffective way.

I think people generally want good and want to be good, but historically there's been too many misidentified problems and ineffective solutions that have led to other problems cropping up elsewhere, and a chain effect leading to the problem eventually becoming so broad and complex that, at this point regardless of where you stand or what you propose, you're bound to be myopic and accidentally (or deliberately) causing harm in some other area.

Basically the whole of humanity is a case of "I never paid attention in first year high school physics, and now it's the end of my undergrad degree and a week before the exam and I realised there are so many basic things that I didn't understand but I've skated by by sweeping them under the rug and now they're coming back to bite me in the ***". Not all at once, but that's the general idea imo.


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## User Not Found (Nov 29, 2018)

I'm a misanthrope - so yes. I think humans are evil and dumb.


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## Socialmisfits (May 14, 2021)

Good when things go well, bad when things go awry.


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## WillYouStopDave (Jul 14, 2013)

User Not Found said:


> I'm a misanthrope - so yes. I think humans are evil and dumb.


 Depending upon your interpretation of "evil", maybe. I'd have to disagree pretty strongly with "dumb" however. Humans are actually probably too smart for our own good in a lot of ways. And the smartest humans are scary smart. I do think there's a certain unpleasant characteristic to almost every human. Which goes back to the point of "scary smart". The smartest people will usually do whatever they please and get away with it.

So it's kind of hard to come to a good conclusion on whether people are "good or bad". The smartest people do a lot of damage and get away with it but so do the dumbest people.


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## Blue Dino (Aug 17, 2013)

In many ways, intelligence or attempting to be intelligent when stupid, it can be a recipe for evil. The desire in wanting more than the necessities of basic survival for the most part, is what brews evil. Which is what separates humans from animals.


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## Humesday (Mar 6, 2016)

I haven't yet encountered a philosophical system that would prove that one way or another. Skepticism has destroyed all of my hopes in that regard over the years.

I tend to default to morality being sentiment. Also, I often tend to view it as more of a hindrance than benefit personally. I have also been giving up on believing compassion and affective empathy are traits good people have. I view them more as being levers the powerful can exploit to browbeat and manipulate people with less power into deference. Forgiveness also seems to be a tool the powerful try to use to avoid being held accountable on a primal level. I'm tired of being bullied, and I'm tired of being bullied for feeling bitter about being bullied. When push comes to shove, power is what people respect.

I'm tired of being stigmatized while being told I'm not stigmatized. I'm tired of the lies and horse****.

I don't think people are inherently good or bad, but I've decided to assume they are bad. Also, I don't much care to deal with feeling disillusioned daily by making the assumption that people are good.


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## RSxo (Apr 19, 2018)

I'd say neutral. The way I see it, people have the opportunity to do good or bad in their lives regardless of their situation, so depending on that you become 'better' or 'worse', but also allows for the idea that people can change course ('bad' people can do good and become better).


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