Human Nature

[Ivan Denisovich]

Humans are and were shitty and immoral species. Cursory look at the history filled with wars, genocides and all matter of crimes suffice to see it.

That's too pessimistic IMHO. Yes, history is bleak but I see slow progress over time. There are peaks and valleys but I see a general upward trend. We are definitely in a valley now and we need to climb out of it but we need to have faith that we will.

I see a progress too. Compared to tyrants of old dictators of this new age have many more tools at their disposal, like social media.

Yes, I admit that isn't very logical (my optimistic Secular Humanism side asserting itself) but what's the alternative? Wallowing in self-despair and self-pity? What good will that do us? We need to plow on and have faith that the better part of our nature will prevail. It's worked before. The Inquisition is long-gone. No longer do we have death wagons collecting our dead and beating to death those who claim they are getting better and going for a walk (Apologies to Monty Python).

We are making progress. It's slower than we would like but I believe it's happening. It keeps me going.

I leave faith to believers, especially when it comes to something so absurd (in my view) as human animal better nature. Where is this better nature when it comes to Gaza or Ukraine to use most striking examples? Why rogue states aren't bombed to kingdom come and sanctioned to hell and back? Yes, there is some help yet both war and genocide continues. And that's just tip of the iceberg - hunger, poverty, discrimination is rife and world does shit.

In Poland (member state of EU and 21-st world economy, not some banana republic) women are denied control over their own bodies - where are international sanctions, outrage, protests? Nobody cares and this lack of care is the reason for which I don't think all that much about humans. We might be better than in the days of yore but being barely better than shit is still shit.

It is not despair or self-pity to see human for what it is. If humans would be something better than walking sacks of garbage then fascism wouldn't make comeback. If humans were more than bloodthirsty animals then genocides would be song of the past (if they would happen at all). Truly what a piece of work man is (yes, I know that Shakespeare meant something different).

[Alan V]

I wonder how well other atheists get along with regular people.

As far as I know, Atheists are regular people!

From my own personal experiences, I would say that atheists are more honest and straightforward than other people. That might affect how well we socialize. It certainly does for me.

[Alan V]

There's maniacs, people who just don't agree with you and annoying people everywhere but surely you established that earlier on in life, you said you're old i don't know how old. I'm 40 and I'm pretty jaded.

I'm 69. While I have known about the problems with human nature for most of my adult life, until just a few years ago I still believed such problems could be transcended. Now I no longer believe that. I think at best we can only minimize our human nature, and it now seems that will not be enough to deal with climate change, Trump, or any of a range of pressing problems. After all, our human nature led to these problems.

However, as I mentioned I am unsure about this uncomfortable conclusion. It seems from what I have read that most atheists are also rather despairing.

[Alan V]

It helps having always been more introverted and it helps that I had to learn to entertain myself as my parents would ground me for just about anything...often up to a month at a time.  I was trained for this.

Lately I have retreated from other people IRL. I think of myself more as a ghost now.

However, these discussions remain helpful.

[Alan V]

I think we all have things we try to forget having done.  And when we think of ourselves, we only recall the good bits.

I sometimes wish I was a person like that.

[Alan V]

That's too pessimistic IMHO. Yes, history is bleak but I see slow progress over time. There are peaks and valleys but I see a general upward trend. We are definitely in a valley now and we need to climb out of it but we need to have faith that we will.

Yes, I admit that isn't very logical (my optimistic Secular Humanism side asserting itself) but what's the alternative? Wallowing in self-despair and self-pity? What good will that do us? We need to plow on and have faith that the better part of our nature will prevail. It's worked before. The Inquisition is long-gone. No longer do we have death wagons collecting our dead and beating to death those who claim they are getting better and going for a walk (Apologies to Monty Python).

We are making progress. It's slower than we would like but I believe it's happening. It keeps me going.

Is humanism a part of the problem? Have we empowered people too much with our technologies? For instance, people seem to be spreading far too much misinformation and disinformation on social media. I'm no longer at all sure that we are honest enough about ourselves. Our pro-human biases seem to be leading us right back to tribalism.

[Belacqua]

There's maniacs, people who just don't agree with you and annoying people everywhere but surely you established that earlier on in life, you said you're old i don't know how old. I'm 40 and I'm pretty jaded.

I'm 69.  While I have known about the problems with human nature for most of my adult life, until just a few years ago I still believed such problems could be transcended.  Now I no longer believe that.  I think at best we can only minimize our human nature, and it now seems that will not be enough to deal with climate change, Trump, or any of a range of pressing problems.  After all, our human nature led to these problems.

However, as I mentioned I am unsure about this uncomfortable conclusion.  It seems from what I have read that most atheists are also rather despairing.

Yeah, I also think that things stay about equally horrible. At a local level things may get a little better or a little worse, but overall the amount of evil stays about the same. 

Like we can be proud of ourselves that America finished up its genocide on the native Americans. Maybe we think we know better now and wouldn't do it again. But now our taxes are paying for a different genocide, and this one's particularly grisly and unforgivable. And bipartisan, it's not just Trump. 

And we don't even talk about what's happening in the Sahel region. Like the unimaginable horror there isn't even on our radar. 

More locally (and perhaps superficially) I do think some things have gotten worse. There's been a polarization of views, so that we don't have respectful discussions anymore. Each side sees the other as not only incorrect but undeserving of basic courtesy. 

And I don't think this is Trump's doing. In fact I think it's the opposite -- I think that a large part of Trump's popularity comes from the fact that he talks the way the rest of us do. He's "direct" and "tells it like it is." He doesn't bother with courtesy, he just says what he thinks. And even anti-Trump people see those things as good. Vulgarity is seen as a sign of sincerity. If we disagree, we get nasty. Nastiness is encouraged, as long as the target is someone who falls outside of our locally approved ideology. 

So I don't think human nature changes, but I do think that societal changes can cause it to manifest differently. When your culture encourages people to hate, more people will hate. And more people will say more hateful things. 

Unfortunately in my experience the atheists are no better than the Christians in this respect. At least on the Internet, I have encountered some wildly hate-filled atheists. (Granted, life on line may not be representative. In my neighborhood nearly everyone is nominally Pure Land Buddhist, and practically speaking atheist, and we all get along really well.)

[Belacqua]

That's too pessimistic IMHO. Yes, history is bleak but I see slow progress over time. There are peaks and valleys but I see a general upward trend. We are definitely in a valley now and we need to climb out of it but we need to have faith that we will.

Yes, I admit that isn't very logical (my optimistic Secular Humanism side asserting itself) but what's the alternative? Wallowing in self-despair and self-pity? What good will that do us? We need to plow on and have faith that the better part of our nature will prevail. It's worked before. The Inquisition is long-gone. No longer do we have death wagons collecting our dead and beating to death those who claim they are getting better and going for a walk (Apologies to Monty Python).

We are making progress. It's slower than we would like but I believe it's happening. It keeps me going.

Is humanism a part of the problem?  Have we empowered people too much with our technologies?  For instance, people seem to be spreading far too much misinformation and disinformation on social media.  I'm no longer at all sure that we are honest enough about ourselves.  Our pro-human biases seem to be leading us right back to tribalism.

There's a splendid book by the late and much-missed anthropologist David Graeber which almost inspires hope. His thesis is that much of what we take to be negative about human nature -- the competitiveness, the greed, the tribalism -- is not inevitable. 

I certainly think that the mutual hate people have for each other in America now is encouraged and partly intentional. TV news makes more money if we are constantly outraged. People vote for Democrats if they hate Republicans enough, and vice versa.

Graeber looks at other societies which have encouraged different, more positive values, and concludes that human nature can include these things as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Dawn-Everything-N...348&sr=8-2

[The Valkyrie]

Individually, humans can be truly intelligent and well meaning. As a species, we're too fucking dumb to ignore our own forthcoming extinction.

We can see the effects of climate change on our planet, but we ignore it. Worse, some of us deny the science and continue to exploit our world due to greed, religion, or idiology.

I suppose it's a problem because, after all, we're a predator species that's too stupid to overcome our destructive nature and will continue to be until it's too late.

I'm a pessimist by nature, and I sre nothing good coming from humanity unless we have one serious wake-up call (that we won't/can't ignore).

In the end, perhaps our extinction is the only thing that will save the planet.

[Sheldon]

It seems to me that people have been given a type of permission to let their negative sides show...thanks in large part to Trump not only saying the quiet things out loud but also by encouraging it.

What seems to be dying is civility.  There was a time, not that long ago, that other than the most hateful among us knew to tone it down.  Now, the bigger bigot you are the louder you can scream it from the rooftops.

I have lived from the free love times to the hate is the answer time...and I don't like it one little bit.

My wife recently sent me this link, about how our leaders affect us:

[Article: https://neurosciencenews.com/dark-triad-...ion-28648/ ]

This supports your perspective, and many of our intuitions about the situation we face.

I would not have thought that large numbers of people would be so easy to manipulate, but I apparently over-estimated people's understanding of their own psychology.

I think it is easier to manipulate a crowd, than it is an individual. Mob mentality and tribal instincts are generally not pretty, and rarely produce sound reasoning. 

I seem to remember some research, that demonstrated we are hardwired to conform to a group, even when we know they are wrong. In the research they asked simply question to a group, but only one of the group was a test subject, the others were plants, and the test initially answered correctly, but then when the fake members started giving deliberately incorrect answers, the test subjects started amending their correct answers to conform with the group. 

Ah I found the experiment:

"Asch Conformity Experiment"

"The Asch conformity experiments were a series of psychological experiments conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s. The experiments revealed the degree to which a person's own opinions are influenced by those of a group."

CITATION