Human Nature

[The Grand Nudger]

I disagree. As far as I am concerned humans good nature is just fairy tale some of us tell to themselves to feel better. Wars, hunger, poverty... nothing about it speaks about bipedal animal being good natured. It's uncaring, selfish and apathetic at best even if it is capable of compassion and mercy.

Perhaps you're right, but perhaps your metrics for good are not representative of the moral field in reality? 

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In an amoral universe full of things which are not moral agents any amount of good done by any creature however minor either in absolute terms or in comparison to their capacity, or in relation to their full repertoire of behavior is more than the baseline amount of good there would be otherwise.  In this, saying that we do more good than wolves or worms may be a low bar, but it's also very difficult to argue with.  Not because people are good doing machines, as it were, but because we are at least capable and cognizant of good.  Now, I think that undersells us and the universe, other creatures, etc..that in framing things this way we are already drifting into unrepresentative and prejudicial framing - but it's worth thinking about as yet another strange notion that degenerate religions have smuggled into our compromised brains.

I've planted more trees than the average logger could cut down in 600 years just this spring.  If they worked as hard at it as I do and had access to specialized equipment commensurate to my own then..maybe...45 years?  I won't get sainted for it.  They aren't handing out awards.  No one's going to make me the mayor of town on account of my compulsion.  I couldn't point to that as a defense, excuse, or justification if I brutally assaulted my neighbor for the pure enjoyment of it....and with guys like me..you never know.....but still...that's good, no?   Utilitarian or moral good - I'll settle for either.   These are trees whose shade I will never enjoy.  They are for reforestation. They won't be marketable for at least 35 years...and the full benefit of the trees (for timber or reforestation) won't be realized for up to 200.  I make a modest salary.  Nothing anyone would upend their life to get their hands on.  Nothing they'd quit their jobs as mcdonalds supervisors for on pay alone.  The work itself is not easy.   

I hope that when I share my opinion that human nature is generally well meaning, generally good...this isn't taken to mean that we are just one thing.  That, because we're good natured, we are not also other things, are not also capable of other things.  Selfishness, apathy, violence for delight of violence.  It isn't really possible to do or be good if you cannot also do or be bad.  The trees I'm planting, for example..not capable of either.   They'll outlive me, and they'll benefit other people and environments in ways I couldn't...but in all those centuries they will never once actually be good or do a good thing. 

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If humans would actually be good then this vanishing fraction would be only capable of dreaming about their dastardly deeds. Genocidal, warmongering or evil in some lesser way politicians aren't conjured from thin air, people vote on them and they vote on them because just like biblical god (which coincidentally is another genocidal figure that is widely worshipped) they want to have politicians in their own likeness and in their own image. Those voting for likes of trump, orban or kaczynski aren't poor, misguided darlings. They're fascists, though often too dumb or cowardly to identify so.

That sounds inaccurate, to me.  A bad actor may be more capable than a good actor, and a good actor is..if they're a moral agent at least, capable of failing. 

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I'd also suggest that people don't vote for tyrants because they like authoritarian gods but that people manufacture authoritarian gods because we flirt with human tyranny.  That the mold is human, not divine, and very explicitly so.  Tyranny is expedient.  Expediency is one of our (many) specific defects.    Fear..ignorance, more examples (inextricably linked to our ability to be courageous and to learn).  That there may be some better (moral or utilitarian) way to resolve and issue does not itself resolve that issue or the need to resolve an issue with urgency.  

When my kids start failing around the house, maybe just one out of the many, I often resort to collective punishment.  Do I do this because I'm an evil tyrant who seeks out the bad for it's own sake or my enjoyment of it?  No.  It sucks...and I feel shitty doing it.  However, many hands make light work...and if what it takes to nip a thing in the bud is conscripting more people, and in a way that is intended to exploit their selfish and possibly apathetic impulses to avoid negative consequences.....that's what I'm going to do.    I'll try things the right way, and even the nice way, first.  Sure, maybe that's also self interested..I think doing bad shit (or doing shit the wrong way) is exhausting and I have some experience here...but even that, if we adjust our frame of reference for good to something more realistic and less fantasy based...is an explanation of how and why people are good or can be good even by accident, or even in the face of our attempt to do what is, on it's face or by itself, not good.

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TLDR version (LOL?)
What can I say.  I'm a fan of man.  We often use the term self interested as a pejorative.  I think we'd be crazy not to be self interested, and if we weren't self interested enough to keep on kicking, at least, we'd never live to do whatever good we're capable of.  Additionally, if our self interest never aligned with good (again, moral or utilitarian) then where does all this human good (however defined) come from...and isn't that even more difficult to explain..then?

I agree with you about the nuts, though...and I think they're voting against their own self interest. Yet another thing that would be difficult to explain if we really were bad natured little shits. Wouldn't their self interests be aligned, in that case? Magatism in the us is a product of fear and ignorance. The fear is well placed, the ignorance is not, and none of it serves man's nature, the moral good, or the utilitarian good. It's not even an expedient. Just a terrible mistake...full stop. Stealing brown peoples houses will not make more houses. Deporting labor and children will not improve our economy or productivity. Letting robber barons run roughshod over us will not make us wealthier. Destroying our environment will not make us more comortable. Letting criminals loot our institutions will not improve them. Even out and out racists as single issue voters still want to bake apple pies for their kids under roofs that don't leak in neighborhoods that aren't filled with small arms fire woken up every morning by the sound of an ied and the smell of burning deisel. Nationalists like myself, former combatants like myself, often end up wanting to put down their rifles and not shoot at anyone anymore...certainly don't want to see our own people get shot, or even worse, shooting each other. None of this matters to misanthropy...if we love heinous shit then we'd just want more of it....but it matters to me, it matters to us, I think?