What beliefs or hypotheses do you hold strongly despite not feeling confident that you can necessarily prove or evince it?
Let hear them conjects
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People are basically good
We are social animals that evolved to work cooperatively. We have deeply ingrained mechanisms that encourage pro-social behavior.
I agree. People are by default "good" and want happy lives within their communities. It's when tribalism steps into the scenario that most problems arise.
Thing is, that tribalism is what drives the good parts.
It falls apart with distance or numbers, though.
Yes! Cooperative behavior can that result in kin selection, where the individuals of the community have similar fitness. However, selfishness and deception are exceptionally beneficial behaviors for increasing the fitness of a particular individual. That is just within the same species. Perhaps tribalisms are another form of kin selection?
Weird. I think the opposite.
Yeah, I believe that too. As an actual proportion of all living people, actually (as in from birth, with a pathological lack of empathy or similar) bad people are most likely a very thin minority.
The rest come from nurturing (friends, family, economic situation), political choices (affordable healthcare, housing, food safety), and bad luck.
We are also gullible and ignorant most of the time, which probably doesn't help either.
People are basically good, but criminally ignorant on average.
Just look at Asmond Gold's recent ban. I doubt the dude would ever even think about shooting a Palestinian himself, but boy will he happily dehumanize an entire culture as easy as taking a sip of water!
Yes. I looked that up, it seems he said something very nasty on his Twitch stream and was temp-banned.
Do you think a fourteen day ban is an effective deterrent? Why?
I think he is at least in part rewarded with publicity. We are currently discussing him, right?
Dunno'. I hope so, but Asmond has proven to be a bit ... uh... dense. Hopefully he at least learns not to use such negative language when he supposedly doesn't mean the entire meaning.
Do you think (on the balance) its more nurture than nature to be shitty to other humans?
I definitely do. Those who act the worst towards others were usually raised that way, or encountered some kind of struggle that made them bitter.
I strongly believe that if everyone was raised with compassion, and if everyone was supported and had their needs met, then we would see very little evil in the world.
Our society seems structured to bring out the worst in us, and rewards those who behave unethically. A better world is possible though.
This is pretty harsh on people whose children turn out badly in spite of anything they did. And there are many such cases.
On this subject it seems best to stick to the science rather than to cling to intuitions.
Maybe I phrased this badly, but I definitely don't think it's 100% on parents, society and life experience play a huge role as well.
There will always be a very small percentage of people who just turn out cruel, but I believe 99.9% of people are fundamentally good. It's just fear or pain in their past or present that causes some to be bad to others.
Also I think this is pretty firmly in the realm of philosophy, at least for now. I'm not aware of any research that can really answer this, although more broadly nurture seems to matter more than nature.
I’m not aware of any research that can really answer this, although more broadly nurture seems to matter more than nature.
In my understanding, the research shows it's rather the other way round. But these things are pretty hard to quantify so the debate is always going to be a bit sterile.
I do however take objection when science is instrumentalized in the service of political ideology. As you surely know, a core tenet of Marxism is that human beings are socially constructed. Therefore, rather like religious fundamentalists on the subject of evolution, doctrinaire leftists have a strong incentive to deny science on this subject.
I do however take objection when science is instrumentalized in the service of political ideology.
I didn't bring up politics at all, and I don't think that really applies here. It feels like you have an agenda to push...
You agreed that nurture is "definitely" is more important than nature. That's a scientific truth claim, it can be answered without philosophy, and the scientific jury is out on it. And yet the claim is often deployed in the service of Marxist political ideology as if it's a proven fact. Which it's not. Maybe you're not aware of this context. It's true you didn't explicitly bring up politics.
I'll assume you're commenting in good faith.
I actually didn't claim nurture was more important than nature as a sweeping statement. It clearly isn't in cases like eye color for example. I haven't done a deep dive on this, but research seems to show that genetics play a significant role in predicting personality in general, but less than 50%.
Regardless, whether or not people are 'fundamentally good' or not is a moral statement, not a quantifiable one, as is "being shitty to other humans". It's a different question than personality, which is the closest topic that there seems to be any science on. Is there any specific research that actually makes a claim like this? (also, take a step back and remember what post this is on)
Also as a sidenote, while believing in the good in humanity probably makes someone more likely to be leftist, I don't think Marxism actually relies on people being 'fundamentally good' at all.
I’ll assume you’re commenting in good faith.
Paradox. Personally I do this with everyone without commenting on it, and yet I don't believe they're almost all good people. Or bad. Every individual has the capacity for both, as far as I can tell, and the outcome depends on incentives. Particularly social ones, in my reading.
Have you heard of DeVone Boggan and how he managed to reduce gun violence in Richmond, CA?
How does a nature-over-nurture person interpret the success of such a program?
I never said that it's unimportant, just that it's not the whole story.
This question has gone back and forth a lot, and the data says: both! The overall development of organisms depends the sum of the effect of the genes, the environment, and the gene-by-environment interaction. In conclusion, to predict human behaviors and personalities, we need a new zodiac system that accounts for multiple hemispheres, precipitation, elevation, socioeconomics, pandemics, popular movies, climate change, and the genome.
"I was a Porky's kid, born in the southern hemisphere, I ate well, was raised in good home, I had access to education, and it was back when climate change was still deniable. Most people did not know what a pandemic was. I'm genetically predisposed to hair loss."
"Ma'am, you are, what we call, a Jaguar-5-hypercrab-superbear, and I'm going to have to ask you to go with the nice officer now."