Your belief of human goodness went up? Have you been living under a peaceful rock?
It’s also a little inconsistent with at least one other belief on the graph.
I think I get it and kind of share a similar belief. Most people are “good,” although I’d use a less morally relative term to describe it: Pro-social. People tend to behave in a way that works well with others. This makes sense if you think about it without getting caught up in all the “humans bad” philosopher stuff. One of our defining features as a species is our ability to work together. We form communities, developed languages to communicate, cultural norms and laws to create agreed upon guides on how we behave towards each other, etc. We wouldn’t have gotten this far if we were always stabbing each other in the backs.
At the same time, there are some unfortunate behaviors and phenomenon that emerge out of these dynamics. In group/out group thinking, an unwillingness to change things if it means causing disunity with the community, etc. And while I think most people are good, there are different people with different personalities, and clearly we have at least some psychopaths who are willing to exploit peoples’ natures for their own gain. Also, circumstances can create constraints on how people behave. If you can’t afford to be altruistic, you might end up acting in a selfish way, although even then that’s not always the case.
The fact that you can look out into the world and feel bad about all the people who are getting hurt, even if you aren’t personally affected, should already tell you that there is this “ goodness” to most of humanity. Otherwise a) you wouldn’t care and b) all those bad people would deserve it anyway. So that is the hope that keeps me from full on nihilism. Unfortunately I also think that there are a lot of other factors in place which make it increasingly unlikely that we’ll be able to organize enough to survive. Wealth disparities and technological asymmetry allows those handful of psychos to wield a lot of power and it’s getting harder and harder to fight back against that.
So yeah, I don’t think “people are doomed even if most of them have good intentions” is that contradictory of a view to hold.
Most people are really pleasant. That creates a power vacuum where the worst are usually in seats of power.
Also, where is this rock, and what’s the rent like?
Hawaii, and you don’t want to know.
the awful big caused the local good to come out here. my community is weird for a lot of ways i refuse to specify for reasons
Anyone whose “ghosts” isn’t at zero, as an adult, is someone I’m not going to be trusting on any subject.
Ditto “aliens”, if we interpret it as “extraterrestrials that have been to Earth”.
Ditto “aliens”, if we interpret it as “extraterrestrials that have been to Earth”.
This is an important distinction.
100% chance there is extraterrestrial life out there somewhere
0% chance any of it has come to visit
hey, i have a ghost that lives in my microwave.
first a few things you should know. my entire town was built on an american indian burial ground. like, starting in the 70s they’d have the tribe come out for every new development and help relocate artifacts to [redacted fuck you i ain’t telling] and our house is legit burial ground. not cursed burial ground or anything. anyways we have this ghost that turns on our microwave from time to time, seemingly randomly. I named him Smudgy, because we have one of those touchscreen control thingies and i noticed he’s active whenever someone with greasy fingers has been using the microwave. and he’s really easy to shut up with a soapy washcloth.
i “believe” in ghosts. it’s harmless fun.
my entire town was built on an american indian burial ground
I see why would you believe in ghosts
he’s active whenever someone with greasy fingers has been using the microwave. and he’s really easy to shut up with a soapy washcloth.
huh
Real adulthood is knowing there’s no logical way to unconditionally prove those particular negatives. What you do with that information is another discussion.
Edit: Also if anybody is interested in reading up in an absolutely fascinating phenomenon, this was a topic that came up during my hospice / palliative care rotations. This article in particular is a systematic review from last year.
One of the most fascinating things about this phenomenon is that it’s markedly different from the hallucinations seen with psychosis and delirium (which I’m more familiar with, my specialty being psychiatry). In particular the person experiencing it presents with orientation and cognition that is completely logical, linear, and otherwise intact.
A patient with psychosis often presents with poor understanding of their situation overall, such as not knowing where they are, not remembering recent events, or sometimes not even recognizing themselves. Their speech also usually presents with either thought blocking / poverty of thought, or the opposite—tangentiality / flight of ideas where their statements don’t logically follow each other.
Meanwhile patients reporting death visions are typically able to accurately recall where they are, what has been happening, what is likely to happen next, and retain the ability to have linear and reality based discussions. They just also report seeing deceased family or pets, religious figures, etc.
Fascinating topic.
End-of-life visions are Santa cosplaying as people’s dead relatives, as he’s known to only be visible to those he wishes to be visible to
And, of course, as a real adult you know there is no logical way to unconditionally disprove this particular statement about Santa
Fuck that’s stupid, how the hell could you believe in that kind of incoherent nonsense?
It’s not Santa, you fucking dolt, he doesn’t exist, it’s Mothman. For fuck’s sake.
Edit: Who the hell is taking this seriously enough to downvote?
Edit: Who the hell is taking this seriously enough to downvote?
amarynthia@sh.itjust.works and Passerby6497@lemmy.world
Now this answer I will take. Me and my husband have matching booty shorts that say “goblin” and “mothman” on the respective derrieres.
No one’s asking anyone to prove a negative, there’s just zero case for a positive.
You can not believe in ghosts because there’s zero evidence they exist and compassionately support someone at the end of their life who’s experiencing deathbed visions at the same rime
Apparently the other commenter can’t.
Thats a super interesting phenomenon that has absolutely nothing to do at all with ghosts existing or not.
I don’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural, but I’ve visited sites where America massacred Native Americans and enslaved Africans. What I felt and experienced there can only be described as haunting. Brains do weird things in stressful situations. I get why some people give too much legitimacy to their hallucinations. They can be chilling, compelling, convincing, formative, and even beneficial.
My opinions on the subject are entirely opposite of yours, but I think we might agree that the two lines should actually meet and become “are aliens ghosts?”
Human goodness should plummet as well
Someone else suggested that the rise in belief in human goodness is a function of the rise in belief of human incompetence. When you start recognizing that people frequently do stupid bad things not because they are bad, but because they are stupid, your heart softens a bit with regards to their intent.
Anti-abortion is a great example. The majority of anti-abortion people genuinely believe that a zygote is an innocent human life, and terminating it is literally murder. If that’s what they believe, why wouldn’t they do everything in their power to stop it? People are murdering innocent babies!
The more you get to know people, the more you start believing in Hanlon’s razor. Most of the “bad” people aren’t bad, they’re just good people with stupid beliefs.
I love your optimism, but its rather misplaced.
The majority of anti-abortion people genuinely believe that a zygote is an innocent human life, and terminating it is literally murder. If that’s what they believe, why wouldn’t they do everything in their power to stop it?
But they’re NOT doing that.
They’re not promoting sex education, which drastically reduces teenage pregnancy and thus abortions. They’re not working to increase financial and social security for mothers to ensure having a child isn’t a massive risk. They’re not doing to reduce sexual assault of women leading to unwanted pregnancy.
They’re not doing everything in their power, not even remotely close. They’re literally just doing one single thing, and that’s the thing that hurts women the most, in the most ways and empowers terrible men the most.
So, given that they’re actually not trying very hard, and doing things that benefit themselves, one has to wonder if that’s truly a surprising of highly specific incompetence, or intentional.
One has to wonder if that’s truly a highly specific incompetence, or intentional.
I’ll apply Hanlons razor again: These people are stupid, therefore doing “everything in their power” involves using woefully ineffective means to achieve their goal. I have no problem believing that most anti-abortionists genuinely believe that they’re trying to save innocent lives. However, being relatively dumb people means they are primarily driven by feelings rather than logic, and are easily manipulated. This results in them using the means that they “feel” should be effective, rather than proven methods. It also means that the few people that actively are looking to oppress others can manipulate their feelings to make them support means that hurt the people they’re trying to help.
Someone had a very sad childhood to not believe in human goodness as a kid
Childhood is when I learned that it is rare
You believe in a thing called love?
Just listen to the rhythm of my heart!
There’s a chance we could make it now
Romantic love? No. It’s just people being horny.
Friendship “Love” (友爱)? Ehh… not really… most those who you call “friends” are really just acquaintances.
Sibling “Love” (兄弟姐妹爱)? No… so much abuse…
Paternal/Maternal Love (父母爱)? Sort of, I believe it probably exist somewhere out there, but I got a bad roll of dice this “incarnation” so I got sort of shitty parents…
But at the end of the day, it’s really just brain chemicals.
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Brain chemicals are a thing that exist.
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Gravity is globist propaganda, wake up!
/j because Poe’s law
I feel like the deeper you get into physics, the more that statement makes sense. 😅
I’ve seen some flat Earth videos where they legit “explain” how gravity is fully explained by the flat earth constantly accelerating upwards.
That would explain all the giant rocket engines (i live on the bottom of the earth)
You can always rely on gravity, and NOTHING ELSE!
There are three constants in the universe. Death, Taxes, and Change.
Also, I’m not certain about the first two.
2035 bingo card: by drilling forever deeper for oil, we messed up the earth’s core and somehow that turned off gravity (yes, I know there’s no scientific basis for it happening, it comes as a surprise).
Might make a good (ridiculous) disaster movie. Heck, let’s trigger real time continental drift while we’re at it
Wow your love went up so dramatically. Mine is the opposite in a way.
Your belief in Santa went up? I mean, as long as it helps you avoid the “naughty list”, I guess that’s alright, lol.
Likely for kids. You gotta “believe again”
I’d assume it’s belief in him physically existing as a kid then translating to Saint Nicholas or spirit of christmas, but staying low to represent that it’s shifted.
I really like the idea of telling people that I believe in ghosts more than myself
Human goodness and ghosts are down for me, aliens is up.
For me the society’s ability not to destroy itself is at an all time high, but my light blue would be 'the idea that society is sophisticated and high functioning’
What’s raised it?
Getting older and seeing that it hasn’t happened yet xD
I now see the checks and balances in place to prevent society from actually destroying itself. Everything is more managed/controlled than you’d think it is, in a typical “western country” like the USA or Britain.
CO2 ppm just keep rising, little by little. Covid response showed we could do a lot more, but we just don’t want to.
Boo insufficient shit
I want to believe 🛸
