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Kontra Kommando

Hobbes vs Locke: The Nature of Humanity

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Netherstorm said:

She had her car towed.


And its not ones fault but her own. She should conducted herself like an adult. Not like a child.

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FireFish said:

Do you even read what you write, if she would have screwed an incubus the supernatural would have been reality. basicly you truly claim she needs to be a real witch fucking a demon before the expession applies. The lack of common sense is just mind bothering.

Dude, have you been dropped on the head as an infant or something? How autistic is your brain to even consider I could be for real about fucking an actual, existing incubus? Do you often struggle with the barbs of sarcasm? Because, you know, the absurdity of the trumped up accusations in "witch trials" and their modern day derivations was my point. I give you 0 points.

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Woman's a cunt. She was towed, so I can only assume it was her dumb fault. And now she, a rich celebrity, is taking it out on an employee that has to deal with this same shit day in and day out.

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dew said:

Dude, have you been dropped on the head as an infant or something? How autistic is your brain to even consider I could be for real about fucking an actual, existing incubus? Do you often struggle with the barbs of sarcasm? Because, you know, the absurdity of the trumped up accusations in "witch trials" and their modern day derivations was my point. I give you 0 points.


i will only write this last thing before i ignore you forrever ;
Sarcasm is near impossible to detect if written by a person with not enough skill to write it. This is text based, not speech. btw ; you are locked into your own thought-line, constantly acting odd by immediately resorting to insults in multiple topics, and think you know everything... so it would be best for you not to call other people autistic.
- bye.

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FireFish said:

Sarcasm is near impossible to detect if written by a person with not enough skill to write it.

Confirmed autist.

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Sorry to do this in your thread contra commando... but yeah.

dew said:

Confirmed autist.

The forum does not allow me to ignore you, sadly. But you are the most insane person i have known to post on any forum or chat while that person is attempting to act like the cool normal guy... somebody like you shouldnt even be a moderator on any forum. I hope you are young and under 20 or else i would truly feel sorry for you. Every post i have ever read from you truly made me think you had mental isseus.

take it to the pm's or let it be, but dont make youself look insane dude.

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FireFish said:

The forum does not allow me to ignore you, sadly.

Sure it does. Click my profile and then click "Add dew to Your Ignore List". You will still see that I posted, but the posts will be conveniently rolled up to not insult your eyesight.

But you are the most insane person i have known to post on any forum or chat while that person is attempting to act like the cool normal guy... somebody like you shouldnt even be a moderator on any forum.

So, like, you know crazier people than me, but they don't attempt to act cool and normal? So I win just the denial chart? Bummer. Also keep in mind I only police the Doom Speed Demos forum. If you have any grievances about the way I moderate that section, I'm sure my superiors will gladly look into it. If I'm as crazy as you say, surely my insanity permeates all of my posting, not just the sociopolitical issues on which we disagree, right?

I hope you are young and under 20 or else i would truly feel sorry for you. Every post i have ever read from you truly made me think you had mental isseus.

I think I'm actually older than you. Have you read all my posts, or is it possible that you just were so unlucky to stumble into the ones where I sound deranged?

take it to the pm's or let it be, but dont make youself look insane dude.

Sorry, I don't cyber.

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dew said: ...


1 - A moderator can not be ignored. the forum software nicely says so.

2 - Mosts post you made since i followed doomworld (3.5 or 4.5 years including unregistered) where blatant attacks and quote disections purely made in an attempt to make yourself look great by means of riddiculing another person. At many occasions you didnt even seem to know about, or understand what you where reading or quoting,

3 - you just resort to insults when facts or proof appear which you cant get past.

4 - I truly cant be insulted trough the internet, i merely state the obvious when i notice an awkward person like you slinging the words towards me.

Note ;
I truly wont respond to your trolling attempts anymore, because i actually dont care at all. I just love to debate.

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FireFish said:

1 - A moderator can not be ignored. the forum software nicely says so.

Aaaahahaha, I did not know that. Welcome to an eternity with me. Mmm, you smell nice.

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I found that the ignore function doesn't work on forums anyway due to human psychology, at least for me. I always ended up clicking on "view post" every time when I would add someone to the list. Gotta see what that bastard wrote this time.

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Sodaholic said:

It's actually quite normal for people to be assholes

That's gotta be the most fucked-up thing I read on these forums, ever. Congratulations, shithead.

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Why the fuck are you guys writing walls of text about this shit? Yes, people do get raging mad from time to time. No, that doesn't excuse being a total cunt. "Cyber bullying" is overhyped, real world bullying is much worse, and that's what this blonde dickhead did. That's about all there is to say about it..

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O hei guize let's all lose our shit over somebody losing their shit.
Don't lose your shit, don't be a dick.
/thread

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Kontra Kommando said:

Everyone has moments like this


I don't, and it's not normal to blow up at strangers.

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Nah there's not, and you can tell because 99.9999999% of the time when you go anywhere no one's yelling at anyone. Maybe it's different for you though, maybe 100% of the time whenever you go somewhere someone's being a bully, and there's a simple explanation....

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Well I had an interesting day at work. I got yelled at over the phone something fierce by a person that's not even a client, but is a client of the client. My teeth, nor my education were involved. He did make a fierce attempt to belittle me based on lack of money, being a tech nerd, never being laid and being from the Midwest in general. However like a professional I took it all.

Funny thing is he questioned my professionalism... when I'm not working for him, therefore I don't have to be professional to him, nor have I ever had to deal with him before and ever will again. I'm working for my company that is working for a client and not this dickwad that yelled at me. I guess that's what people are really like.

It was an interesting test of character and I even thought ooo Doomworld post when he was yelling at me for 10 minutes :-) He could have stopped berating me at the 2 minute mark.

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Ladna said:

Nah there's not, and you can tell because 99.9999999% of the time when you go anywhere no one's yelling at anyone. Maybe it's different for you though, maybe 100% of the time whenever you go somewhere someone's being a bully, and there's a simple explanation....


Everyone is subject to frustration in life. To say that you're exempt from these emotions cannot possibly be true. Some people just handle it better than others. But everyone has a boiling point.

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For almost anything that happens, an element of social media will act in a dickish way and have a dickish, vitriolic over-reaction. I think people may always have done something like this privately and in small groups. It's just that the outlet allows the reaction to spread further and be heard by more people.

A big part of the problem, as I see it, is that too many people see this dickishness as a serious, meaningful reaction that reflects the mood of the general population. It's not. It's dicks being dicks.

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This seems to be evolving more into a debate on human nature.

Here's two preeminent schools of thought on the subject:

Hobbes vs Locke

"bellum omnium contra omnes" Verses "people are generally nice."

http://johnmarshall.rochester.k12.mn.us/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=6167272


Btw, I suggest that people generally "are" assholes by nature. Which I believe to be a positive statement; it merely speaks of reality. This is different from the assertions that people "should" be assholes; which is a depraved normative statement. People shouldn't be assholes, but again, that's just a normative declaration.

We are all guilty of subscribing to both ideologies from time to time. For example, regulation is more inclined to the ideas that hobbes suggest. While believing that private people can be trusted, is a pre-requisite for neoliberalism.

While people that hold those same beliefs will switch between their general trust towards humanity, when it comes to other topics. There's really no absolutes overall, because its interchangeable according to the individual's preferences.

EDIT: I'll change this to be the original post, since I believe it is the more significant conversation that has been yielded from this video. But I'll keep the original post in a spoiler.

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I hadn't heard of Brit McHenry either before clicking this thread, but I find the discussion interesting, hearing the different perspectives on whether the clerk 'deserved' it or not. I can see from both sides of the fence here, (Kontra's and fraggle's) but I tend to agree with fraggle here more. I get the perspective that everyone loses their shit from time to time and says assholish things they regret later, but I don't think that's what's happening here.

To lend a bit of perspective as to the possibility of whether the clerk 'deserved' it, as Kontra suggested, here's an article which indeed strongly suggests the company is pretty bad: http://nypost.com/2015/04/17/espn-was-totally-wrong-to-suspend-britt-mchenry/

This article also reveals some interesting details:

http://bustedcoverage.com/2015/04/16/britt-mchenry-tow-truck-video-gina-michelle/

Apparently, Brit also offered an apology, though not to the clerk herself:

'In an intense and stressful moment, I allowed my emotions to get the best of me and said some insulting and regrettable things. As frustrated as I was, I should always choose to be respectful and take the high road. I am so sorry for my actions and will learn from this mistake.'

So what are the facts? The company is indeed shitty from what we can gather from reviews, the video is edited in such a way that we often don't hear what the clerk is saying, many of us become angry and say shit we regret from time to time, and she also hasn't offered what seems like a sincere apology.

I don't see how any of the negatives against her could in any way justify her behavior. Honestly, this reminds me of a 40-minute insult and threat-laced tirade I endured a couple months back from my emotionally and mentally unstable roommate, and part of that is because he kept his voice at a normal level and used the same demeaning tone that the woman uses for much of this video. Fraggle already pointed this out, but she honestly doesn't sound like she's flying off the handle here.

This isn't some broke, drunk 40-something washed up failure that you might see shouting at a cashier in a supermarket, this is an educated, accomplished woman whom spends much of her time on national television (which I'm bringing up to say that she at least knows how to smile and be professional with others). Her voice barely ever rises above a conversational level, and yet she's viciously degrading this person she barely knows in every possible way she can come up with. What for? She probably isn't even going to see her again, yet she can't just walk out the door? Most people, when angry about a company and their actions, will take some time to complain about whatever the company allegedly did, and she barely does that here, if at all. The whole video is basically of her personally insulting the clerk.

In my estimation, this isn't a case of a normal (or even abnormal, unusually angry) person reaching their boiling point, it's a case of a clinical narcissist unleashing all of their inner wrath at someone who had the audacity to poke a minor hole in their bloated, infected egotistical worldview.

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Kontra Kommando said:

That oversimplified high school account of Hobbes vs Locke kind of makes my stomach churn. I'm not sure if you've actually examined Hobbes' writing in any depth beyond skimming the surface, but (paternalism and myopia granted) his views on human nature were still a bit more nuanced than "people are selfish assholes." Hobbes work (especially the brutish/nasty/short bit) does seem to be something that everyone misreads easily, though.

Btw, I suggest that people generally "are" assholes by nature. Which I believe to be a positive statement; it merely speaks of reality.


Yet in reality, our capacity to care for, relate to, and cooperate with one another is much more fundamentally what seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom (i.e. what puts the human in human nature). The depth of our capacity to empathize underlies our capability to compromise, cooperate, and live civilly in large groups. Those traits, in turn, have been essential not only to every advance in human history, but to humanity's development itself. Evolution of our overall compassionate nature likely preceded (or closely paralleled) the emergence of human intelligence and sapience.

Sure, almost anyone can be an asshole under the right circumstances (some more easily than others, as with anything), but in general, people are no more assholes "by nature" than they are astronauts or murderers or caregivers by nature. But we are so overwhelmingly compassionate by nature that it's tempting to look at the occasional deviations and think "wow, people are terrible to each other", when that's not really the case in a broad sense.

This is different from the assertions that people "should" be assholes; which is a depraved normative statement. People shouldn't be assholes, but again, that's just a normative declaration.

We are all guilty of subscribing to both ideologies from time to time.

No we're not.

For example, regulation is more inclined to the ideas that hobbes suggest.

Hobbes doesn't suggest that people should be assholes either. He argues that without the reasonable guarantee that social cooperation will occur, people would backstab each other and everything would fall apart in a massive race to the bottom. Hobbes and Locke aren't as fundamentally incompatible as a high school social studies course might suggest.

The issue lies in his assertion that absolute paternalism imposed from above is almost always a better way to foster cooperation, rather than taking advantage of the fact that the ability to care about each other and not screw ones' friends over is already deeply wired into the human brain more or less by default.

EDIT: I'll change this to be the original post, since I believe it is the more significant conversation that has been yielded from this video. But I'll keep the original post in a spoiler.

Do people really want to read through this lazily regurgitated introductory philosophy more than they want to gripe about some over-entitled woman with a rotten soul?

Caffeine Freak said:

In my estimation, this isn't a case of a normal (or even abnormal, unusually angry) person reaching their boiling point, it's a case of a clinical narcissist unleashing all of their inner wrath at someone who had the audacity to poke a minor hole in their bloated, infected egotistical worldview.

Exactly. This is not a story about an otherwise kind person being pushed until she snaps, and then bullied online over nothing.

This is a story about a person clearly too used to receiving special treatment for various reasons, then revealed to be a bully who takes pleasure in stepping all over people beneath her in order to get her own way. The self-serving non-apology ("I'm so sorry I was caught, I promise to never let that happen again") is pretty offensive in its own right, but unsurprising.

There's certainly no shortage of reporters out there who could step into her role in a heartbeat. ESPN should can her sorry ass and let someone who doesn't alienate their viewers have a shot instead. Britt McHenry herself might be best served by not only losing her cushy job, but by being forced to work at an impound lot for a six month stint to see if she can develop some humility.

Also, what Enjay said.

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Mithran Denizen said:

That oversimplified high school account of Hobbes vs Locke kind of makes my stomach churn.


Well, i could have posted the entire fucking leviathan, and Two treatise on Government. But I doubt anyone would give a fuck to read it. Maybe you should take a tums.

Mithran Denizen said:

No we're not.


Yea, okay, yes we do.

Mithran Denizen said:

Hobbes doesn't suggest that people should be assholes either.


No shit, I never said he did.

Mithran Denizen said:

Yet in reality, our capacity to care for, relate to, and cooperate with one another is much more fundamentally what seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom (i.e. what puts the human in human nature).


Dude, WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about? There are plenty of animals that do that as well. I suggest you focus less on your philosophy dissertation, and brush up on your elementary biology.

I don't understand what has motivated you to do this. You come in here, and snub your nose at some links I provided, clearly to INTRODUCE people to the concepts. Then you claim its far more nuanced without giving any explanations of those nuances. You try to refute what I said without giving any debate; just a flat out "no". You misinterpret what I said. Then you proceed to use false information about the animal kingdom to prove something about human nature.


Oh the irony, you think that Britt McHenry is a bitch for thinking she's better than that woman, because she has a college degree. Yet apparently high schools make you cringe? Just think about that for a few seconds. You're casting judgement on her for being arrogant, when you yourself, are being arrogant. I bet if your car was towed, you'd react more or less like she did. Particularly the part about acedemic achievement.

Congratulations, you are an example of what I've been talking about this whole time. Her tirade mirrors your condescending lecture, blowhard.

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The name change of this thread thoroughly confused me for a moment. Anyway, I'm no expert on these matters, but - as I recall - to the extent that there's a dispute between Hobbes and Locke, it isn't really centred on whether people are by nature good or bad; rather, it concerns the source and legitimation of the state's authority over its people. The supplied link doesn't work for me, apparently due to my location, but for a neat précis on Hobbes on human nature, the IEP isn't bad (skip to section 4C).

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Mithran Denizen said:

Yet in reality, our capacity to care for, relate to, and cooperate with one another is much more fundamentally what seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom (i.e. what puts the human in human nature). The depth of our capacity to empathize underlies our capability to compromise, cooperate, and live civilly in large groups...


On the subject of living in groups to grade humans ;

When it comes to animals you should take a look at the wild african dogs, the sick and wounded spend their lives in the safety of their teritory while others bring in food. They do not even fight over the alpha male leadership. They just grant it to a member with the ability to do so.

Living in a large group with a form of controlled behaviour is nothing special when used to grade humanity. Even insects are able to live in groups which they call hives or nests consisting of Thousands of ants, or hundreds of bees in which a tight set of behaviour needs to be followed to remain a part of it.

Mithran Denizen said:
People are no more assholes "by nature" than they are astronauts or murderers or caregivers by nature. But we are so overwhelmingly compassionate by nature that it's tempting to look at the occasional deviations and think "wow, people are terrible to each other", when that's not really the case in a broad sense...[/B]


The contradictions in your statements are confusing (the entire post). but yes, being an asshole is related to the point of view and what truly was happening against what bystanders could see or hear.

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Kontra Kommando said:

Congratulations, you are an example of what I've been talking about this whole time.

Which is what, exactly? This thread is a little schizophrenic, so I'm not entirely sure what you've been talking about this whole time. At first I thought you were talking about how easy it is for prominent people to be humiliated online in the digital age, then it was about whether Britt McHenry deserved condemnation, then you abandoned that for some tangent about the nature of human kindness. Now you're personally insulting me because you don't like the way I disagree with your worldview?

Well, i could have posted the entire fucking leviathan, and Two treatise on Government. But I doubt anyone would give a fuck to read it. Maybe you should take a tums.

I suppose I do come into EE expecting too much.

Dude, WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about? There are plenty of animals that do that as well. I suggest you focus less on your philosophy dissertation, and brush up on your elementary biology.

That animals live together and cooperate is not in dispute. Some instinctual level of survival/reciprocity-based altruism is hard-wired into essentially any organism that has evolved to live in a social group. Colony-based insects are especially good examples of this, given that they're almost certainly not neurologically complex enough to actually feel complex emotions about each other.

So I'm not saying cooperation is something that spontaneously emerged in human beings alone, but rather that cooperation is one of the things we excel at on more levels than any other creature we've encountered. It's a distinction of degree, not one of kind. Mammals like elephants and the other primates aren't too far behind us in the empathy race, yet as we understand it, even the most complex social animals empathize almost exclusively within their own immediate groups.

As humans, our capabilities for empathy are so hyperdeveloped that we can identify far beyond our immediate connections, in ways that have little immediate impact on our own survival and wellbeing. Having continuously adapted to live in larger, more interconnected, more complex social settings, the cooperative skills and traits (e.g. language; also our systems of status and reputation) that encourage us to flourish communally (rather than individually) have been increasingly selected for via evolution.

We are driven to care about the welfare of strangers we've just me, and we are driven to care about the welfare of people living across the world, people whom we will never meet. We are driven to care so much that we'll concoct and consume stories, to identify with completely fictional characters.

Elephants don't think about a grandmother they never met and feel an instant personal connection. Well-fed chimpanzees don't concern themselves with those who are hungry in the next colony, nor do they start charities for others to contribute food to in order to alleviate the problem, and then worry about the ethics of those charities.

I don't understand what has motivated you to do this.

And when I understand what motivates people to post threads like this, I'll get back to you.

You come in here, and snub your nose at some links I provided, clearly to INTRODUCE people to the concepts.

No need to overstate it; it was only one link, and I assume you didn't write it, so you needn't be so defensive. I can elaborate on why I think it's a crappy springboard for this discussion, though. For starters, 90% of the concepts it introduces are not actually about the human nature debate you are trying to establish.

Nor is the contention between Locke and Hobbes directly about human nature at all, but more about humans in the state of nature, and about the wheres and whys of how society and governance should fit into the overall picture.

Points #3 for both Hobbes and Locke are speaking about people in very different hypothetical social contexts, so comparing the two directly as different perspectives on human nature misses what they're actually talking about.

A typo and/or grammatical error in point #4 for Hobbes partially reverses the intended meaning, making the passage unclear. Beyond that, there's no context, citation, or elaboration provided for any of the points whatsoever, so that page might make a decent class handout or review sheet, but it's kind of useless for actually examining or understanding the debate.

Then you claim its far more nuanced without giving any explanations of those nuances.

Well, if as you said, nobody is actually going to read Leviathan, I'm not going to recite it for you.

You try to refute what I said without giving any debate; just a flat out "no".

If you actually provided some form of argument to debate or rebut, Perhaps I'd have responded to it in more depth. As it stands, you offered up the observation that you believe "people generally "are" assholes by nature," then gave no support for that observation whatsoever. (To start with, a working definition of 'asshole' might help.)

I'm not sure what you expect from me. Yes, I disagree with your conclusion--if you didn't want to hear that, why did you pose the question? If you wanted more in-depth discussion, why did you gloss over the topic so vaguely yourself?

Just for fun, here's a study supporting the hypothesis that people tend to be intuitively cooperative.

While I'm at it, here are another few articles that are at least as relevant to this discussion as the Locke vs Hobbes page was, if you're genuinely interested.

You misinterpret what I said.

If that's the case, I apologize, and I'll illustrate where your earlier post reads somewhat confusingly to me:

We are all guilty of subscribing to both ideologies from time to time.

What two ideologies are you speaking of here? The two competing ideologies you mention immediately before this statement are 1) "People should be assholes", and 2) "People should not be assholes.", so that was my assumption. "People are assholes" is not really an ideology in any meaningful sense (i.e. an ideology generally requires a normative component). If that's not what you're talking about, why go on explicitly labelling those two statements as normative, and the prior one as positive?

From here, it sounds like you're conflating the "people should be assholes" ideology with Hobbes' views, hence a few of my comments to that effect. I had assumed you were still directly discussing human nature as claimed, not edging into the tangentially-related poli-sci of Hobbes vs Locke.

As another aside, "bellum omnium contra omnes" is used by Hobbes to refer to the hypothetical state in which humans would exist absent of society. It's main relevance for Hobbes is within the context of that thought experiment and its extensions, whereas the "people are generally nice" perspective assumes a more natural social context. It seems odd to present the two as directly opposing viewpoints in this discussion.

If you want to debate the extent to which society is or is not intrinsic to human condition, that's a different story, and Hobbes ideas would be much more relevant.

Oh the irony, you think that Britt McHenry is a bitch for thinking she's better than that woman, because she has a college degree.

No, I actually think that Britt McHenry is misinformed for thinking she's a better person than that clerk. I think she's a bitch because of her hurtful behaviour. But thanks for putting words in my mouth anyway.

You're casting judgement on her for being arrogant, when you yourself, are being arrogant.


I don't mean to be arrogant or condescending, but it's hard for me to see the ideas of my favorite authors misconstrued toward vacuous arguments that are only loosely related to what the authors were really writing about. In any case, I'm not casting judgment against McHenry so much for her state of mind (arrogance), I'm casting judgment on her for her actions (verbally attacking another person).

I bet if your car was towed, you'd react more or less like she did.

Speak for yourself, please. My world is already peppered with enough petty hurtful behaviour to go around, there's simply no need for me to contribute my own. People berate and belittle my colleagues and myself over insignificant nonsense on a fairly regular basis. Luckily most of the time these people catch themselves, realize how counterproductive their indignation is, exercise their empathy, and then apologize profusely and everyone gets back to business. Only a few times have I had to step in to defuse Britt-McHenry-like attacks from people who are incapable of controlling themselves. So anecdotally, I still think people are, overall, good, with the caveat that most anyone is indeed capable of being an asshole, and an unfortunate few people seem permanently stuck that way.

Particularly the part about acedemic achievement.

Not sure where you get that idea. I think academia tends to be overemphasized for all the wrong reasons, if anything. You could try getting to know me before making unkind reflexive assumptions like that.

Her tirade mirrors your condescending lecture, blowhard.

In that both seem to have made you needlessly defensive for no apparent reason?

FireFish said:

On the subject of living in groups to grade humans ; When it comes to animals you should take a look at the wild african dogs, the sick and wounded spend their lives in the safety of their teritory while others bring in food. They do not even fight over the alpha male leadership. They just grant it to a member with the ability to do so.

Living in a large group with a form of controlled behaviour is nothing special when used to grade humanity. Even insects are able to live in groups which they call hives or nests consisting of Thousands of ants, or hundreds of bees in which a tight set of behaviour needs to be followed to remain a part of it.

My point isn't that cooperation itself is an exclusively human trait--that'd be completely absurd. My point is that the depth and extent (i.e "capacity") of our facilities for cooperation are so well developed, and so intrinsic to our place in the world, that it's as much a defining human trait as intelligence, or self-awareness. It goes far beyond controlled behaviour or animal altruism.

The contradictions in your statements are confusing (the entire post). but yes, being an asshole is related to the point of view and what truly was happening against what bystanders could see or hear.

That observation has nothing to do with what I was referring to, so if you've missed my point* so entirely, I'm not even sure how to respond. Granted, my thoughts aren't always presented in the most neatly ordered fashion, but given the way you misinterpreted dew in this very thread, and given that I seem to have a hard time comprehending your posts on a regular basis, I'm beginning to doubt that properly understanding each other is worth the effort it'd require from either of us.

*(the fact that people find assholish behaviour to be repellant hints that it's not really the 'default' in human nature)

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Mithran Denizen said:

Which is what, exactly? This thread is a little schizophrenic, so I'm not entirely sure what you've been talking about this whole time. At first I thought you were talking about how easy it is for prominent people to be humiliated online in the digital age, then it was about whether Britt McHenry deserved condemnation, then you abandoned that for some tangent about the nature of human kindness. Now you're personally insulting me because you don't like the way I disagree with your worldview?

What I’m trying to convey is that human beings are susceptible to behaving badly towards one another, and that no one is exempt. No doubt, we do have the ability to show compassion. However, more often than not, people are in constant conflict with one another, especially if they’re strangers. Everyone has an ugly side, and I think that public shaming is hypocritical on the part of its participants. I wanted to hear other people’s opinions on their general view of human nature. Thus, I figured that the political treaties of both Hobbes and Locke specifically relies on the nature of man, but have significantly divergent views. This was meant to be irrespective of how they felt about their application of government. Sort of like how people compare Aristotle, and Plato, without having do debate their auxiliary ideas like their beliefs about Greek male superiority, or metaphysics. I wanted the discussion to be specifically about these two points:

Hobbes:
Believed that people were wicked, selfish, and cruel and would act on behalf of their best interests. “Every man for every man”

Locke:
Believed that people were by nature good and that they could learn from their experiences.

When I said that people interchange between these two beliefs, I believe this to be true.
In the examples I used, I mentioned regulation, because if one were to believe that a regulating force should come into an industry, it is because they are subscribing to Hobbes’s belief about human nature. They don’t have faith in the idea that the private business owner is going to treat his workers fairly, or make a greater social contribution; they believe that they will act in their own best interest.

On the other hand, the same individual that has that same conviction about regulation, would be opposed to the idea of a regulating force coming in to control a different aspect of society, because they may feel that humans are capable of maintaining themselves, such as our inalienable rights and freedoms, which are only supposed to protected by the government; not granted.

Mithran Denizen said:

Speak for yourself, please. My world is already peppered with enough petty hurtful behaviour to go around, there's simply no need for me to contribute my own. People berate and belittle my colleagues and myself over insignificant nonsense on a fairly regular basis. Luckily most of the time these people catch themselves, realize how counterproductive their indignation is, exercise their empathy, and then apologize profusely and everyone gets back to business. Only a few times have I had to step in to defuse Britt-McHenry-like attacks from people who are incapable of controlling themselves. So anecdotally, I still think people are, overall, good, with the caveat that most anyone is indeed capable of being an asshole, and an unfortunate few people seem permanently stuck that way.


I think you need to appreciate the fact that the much of the world doesn’t operate in that manner. There are places in the third world, where people are hacked to pieces, and burned alive for their differences. There are places in the United States, where this could happen as well. we cannot insulate ourselves to the fact that humanity, for the most part will be wicked and ruthless toward one another. History is filled with conflict, and intolerance that still continues to this day. The accounts that you have made are a testament to the fact that even within the comforts of a first world nation, people still find a drive to be cruel to one another, though in a much softer way. Nevertheless, if you aspire to be better than that; I fully support you. But ultimately the point I was originally making was that no one is exempt from behaving like this, and that public shaming is hypocritical. I think there is a great danger, when the emotional appeals of the masses try to punish individuals; it’s a form of vigilantism. There needs to be safe-guards against the tyranny of the masses, in the information age. Especially, since we have a media that galvanizes situations like this, for their own gain.

I hope this clears things up.

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Mithran Denizen said:

My point isn't that cooperation itself is an exclusively human trait--that'd be completely absurd. My point is that the depth and extent (i.e "capacity") of our facilities for cooperation are so well developed, and so intrinsic to our place in the world, that it's as much a defining human trait as intelligence, or self-awareness. It goes far beyond controlled behaviour or animal altruism.


The ideal human cooperation, Yet we have wars, bullying, governments fighting governments, and worse. If it would have gone so far beyond controlled behaviour we would not have needed any law, nor would we have had the need to teach children what is allowed and what is not. But i respect your point of view for its optimism and the ideal.

Mithran Denizen said:

That observation has nothing to do with what I was referring to, so if you've missed my point* so entirely, I'm not even sure how to respond. Granted, my thoughts aren't always presented in the most neatly ordered fashion, but given the way you misinterpreted dew in this very thread, and given that I seem to have a hard time comprehending your posts on a regular basis, I'm beginning to doubt that properly understanding each other is worth the effort it'd require from either of us.

*(the fact that people find assholish behaviour to be repellant hints that it's not really the 'default' in human nature)


Oh please, the way i write does not differ from anybody else. There is such a thing as attempting to read to much into it. And there is a big difference between what dew was doing and your clean attempts to elaborate your views.

I absolutely understand your points, but it does not mean one needs to agree with them.

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