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Rutger Bregman's new book 'Humankind' is on this topic -- he poses that people are fundamentally good, and makes the point that the 'people are selfish by natur

Rutger Bregman's new book 'Humankind' is on this topic -- he poses that people are fundamentally good, and makes the point that the 'people are selfish by nature' mindset benefits certain ideologies, and increases the concentration of power.

refurb 6y ago
But it’s clearly not one or the other. People are not entirely good or entirely selfish. I would agree that most people do the right thing most of the time, but all it takes is for a few % to do the selfish thing for the system to become dysfunctional.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Plus, sometimes (in some societies and professions) you really need to become a jerk, kick downwards and bootlick upwards. It's best to avoid such places and careers but it's very real. Also I think most people are very blind to their own selfish and "bad person" behavior. This is why stories look so one sided and somehow the person telling the story always comes out as angelic. The truth is, most people have things in their past where they benefited from some thing that left another person worse off. It's just rationalized as "tough luck, that's the rules, life is hard and I was stronger" or something. The "Elephant in the brain" book has examples for this. And weirdly enough I'll say an advice that you never ever hear: sometimes being selfish is okay. There actually are people, like myself, who are by default too soft/compassionate/justice-sensitive/honest/literal/ignorant of what the actual social and socially accepted behavior are vs what is explicitly stated. The thing is, if you want to achieve success you will need to screw over some people in the process. Not constantly and all the time but maybe 2-3 times in your life? You have to be really lucky or extremely good to honestly keep that at 0. But as I said, most people err on the side of being blind to cases when they do this so they'd benefit from the standard advice. And of course many are just like "well, fuck him, I don't like him anyway, he rubs me the wrong way" and don't lose any sleep on the matter. The cynical recipe could be: screw someone over, don't really introspect while doing it, reap the benefits, then admit to yourself that you did wrong, forgive yourself and promise to be nice later, noting that humans are sinful, fallible and imperfect and continue enjoying the benefits you reaped. You will be ahead, and now you have a nice story of how you did wrong things in the past but have wisened up since then. An ex-murderer who is now a normal citizen can become a hero or do motivational speaking, a normal guy who just never murdered is just a normal guy. (This is obviously not advocating murder or crime, I'm simply describing the pattern)

refurb 6y ago

But it’s clearly not one or the other. People are not entirely good or entirely selfish. I would agree that most people do the right thing most of the time, but all it takes is for a few % to do the selfish thing for the system to become dysfunctional.

bonoboTP 6y ago
Plus, sometimes (in some societies and professions) you really need to become a jerk, kick downwards and bootlick upwards. It's best to avoid such places and careers but it's very real. Also I think most people are very blind to their own selfish and "bad person" behavior. This is why stories look so one sided and somehow the person telling the story always comes out as angelic. The truth is, most people have things in their past where they benefited from some thing that left another person worse off. It's just rationalized as "tough luck, that's the rules, life is hard and I was stronger" or something. The "Elephant in the brain" book has examples for this. And weirdly enough I'll say an advice that you never ever hear: sometimes being selfish is okay. There actually are people, like myself, who are by default too soft/compassionate/justice-sensitive/honest/literal/ignorant of what the actual social and socially accepted behavior are vs what is explicitly stated. The thing is, if you want to achieve success you will need to screw over some people in the process. Not constantly and all the time but maybe 2-3 times in your life? You have to be really lucky or extremely good to honestly keep that at 0. But as I said, most people err on the side of being blind to cases when they do this so they'd benefit from the standard advice. And of course many are just like "well, fuck him, I don't like him anyway, he rubs me the wrong way" and don't lose any sleep on the matter. The cynical recipe could be: screw someone over, don't really introspect while doing it, reap the benefits, then admit to yourself that you did wrong, forgive yourself and promise to be nice later, noting that humans are sinful, fallible and imperfect and continue enjoying the benefits you reaped. You will be ahead, and now you have a nice story of how you did wrong things in the past but have wisened up since then. An ex-murderer who is now a normal citizen can become a hero or do motivational speaking, a normal guy who just never murdered is just a normal guy. (This is obviously not advocating murder or crime, I'm simply describing the pattern)