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A majority of people dont do bad deeds because they're "good hearted". They dont murder or steal because they're afraid of the consequences. Theres plenty of fo

A majority of people dont do bad deeds because they're "good hearted". They dont murder or steal because they're afraid of the consequences. Theres plenty of folks you want to punch in the face. Maybe once, twice or until they stop breathing. You lie to yourself that you dont do it because you're a good person. No, you're afraid they'll punch back, or their friends will intervene or assault charges. Or even better, you're too weak to cause consequential harm. Yes nukes stopped a lot of potential wars. Good. If the mere existence is all that's needed to stop like half the wars that ever could be... and? Obviously I dont want them used. But wars happen and theres nothing anyone can do about that. Its human nature to be a bunch of cunts. And there have always been a bunch of existential problems on the horizon. A decent reading of history shows that people have been fearful of whatever the latest fad of problems. The only real difference, in the last 100 years we are not at the complete and total mercy of nature. Only partially. It's only fairly recent that a drought here and there, blizzard, tornado, hurricane or volcano doesn't have epically large consequences in death toll. Those numbers are far less than they used to be.

Pryde 6y ago
Speaking solely to your first paragraph here, I've seen this sentiment expressed before, and it always strikes me as off in some way. I've not committed a lot of thought to the topic until recently, so apologies if my thoughts here are muddled or unclear. I can pretty easily convince myself that a lot of what I'll call "smaller" bad deeds are primarily deterred by the threat of consequences: I never shoplifted a candy bar because it wasn't worth the perceived consequences. But I have a substantially harder time convincing myself that most people don't commit "grander" crimes largely because of a similar fear. Taking murder as the example and myself as a case study, I cannot fathom committing a murder because it feels wrong, there is a part of my mind that recoils at just the thought of it. Is that because the potential consequences of that act are ingrained into my psyche, or is there another reason? I'm inclined toward the latter, certainly. Not to mention that punishments geared toward deterrence often seem to not prevent murder from occurring. I don't have any grand insights here, just sharing my observations on the topic, as it's come up surprisingly often recently in my experience on the internet.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  So I do understand your viewpoint because I absolutely shared it in the past and at no point do I want you to think that I'm about to speak down at you. A lot of people have never been in a real life scenario to experience the actual decision process of doing "bad deeds". Which is actually good. The world is technically a better place because more and more people never have to experience the thought process first hand. However, they sometimes pretend they have, but they really haven't. I was in that field for quite a while. First time parents find an issue with this too. People who figure they themselves are perfect angels incapable of harm, now have to care for their new little angel. An angel doesn't protect a weak little angel from the horrors of the world. What happens when someone abuses or abducts their child? Remember that Olympic physician who was touching all those underage girls? One of the fathers begged the judge for 5 min in a locked room with the guy. When denied, he still charged at the bastard in the courtroom. I bet you 100% that father would have always said he would never do such a thing prior to this event happening. We all lie that we are incapable or evil deeds. No, we need the right circumstances to ignore the consequences. We are afraid of retaliation until we no longer fear it for "good reasons". If you live a life where you never test those waters, hey that's a pretty good easy life. But theres something else to be said about understanding and accepting ones shadow prior hand so you dont go ballistic accidentally. I think the thought that you are incapable of evil is more dangerous than knowing you are capable of it. Because you never question if what you are doing is right or wrong if you are already biased that you can only do good.
  - Pryde 6y ago
    Hey, thanks for engaging and no worries, nothing in your comment struck me as condescending. I see your point here, and will grant that I've been fortunate to not have been in a situation in which I've had to consider anything approaching a "bad deed". Most of my thoughts on the subject are purely hypothetical, and informed by conversations with my dad, who has Seen Some Shit. Looking back on the 2 times I can think of where I have considered striking someone to cause harm (both in middle and high school, a bully and a fight respectively), it seems to me that there is an element of considering consequences, but in neither circumstance were those consequences external. In both cases, it was very much a question of "am I going to feel bad about this later?", which prompted the question of justification rather than punishment. Perhaps at a certain level this is the same thing, but it seems at least qualitatively different to me, a kind of fear of my own judgment rather than that of another person. Would you generally consider this to be the same process, or not? In either case, I can only wholeheartedly agree that perceiving oneself as incapable of evil is a Bad Idea. It seems dangerous to me for much the same reason you laid out, and I will occasionally attempt to engage in the kind of introspection necessary to grapple with what I might be capable of in a similar situation. I'm hesitant to say I'm incapable (psychologically) of doing something terrible in a similar situation, and my previous comment was from the reductionist point of view of a spherical murderer in a vacuum, as it were. Were I in that father's position, I know that I would feel _justified_ in taking that kind of action, which may prompt me to seek the opportunity, which is again where I see a slight difference from being prohibited solely by the fear of consequences, if that makes sense. Again, thanks for taking the time to respond!
i_haz_rabies 6y ago
Yeah, that's the mechanism I'm describing. Droughts, storms and volcanoes are on a totally different scale than nuclear war, climate change, or topsoil erosion though. You could argue that we're in control of those problems, but I'm not holding my breath.
- NoOneNew 6y ago
  Not in control, we just aren't fully at their whim like we used to. We have advanced warning systems for storms. Systems that weren't even a fantasy prior to 1920. Now we have evacuation infrastructure, shelters, preparedness plans on huge scales. Perfect? By our standards, no. But perfect compared to folks who lived in the 1800s. I get you think the world is fading away and there are problems left to solve. You are doing a great disservice to the giant's shoulders you stand on that have put in the effort and sacrifice that allow you to worry about this set of problems. They had far harsher problems with less tools than we have today.
  - i_haz_rabies 6y ago
    I don't think that's true. They had relatively small-scale problems with huge, but narrowly distributed consequences. We have global-scale problems with huge, widely distributed consequences. It's great that we can predict storms and mitigate droughts... but that will not help if someone sets off an accidental nuclear exchange. That peasant from the 1800s and I are exactly equal in our ability to deal with that sort of problem.

Pryde 6y ago

Speaking solely to your first paragraph here, I've seen this sentiment expressed before, and it always strikes me as off in some way. I've not committed a lot of thought to the topic until recently, so apologies if my thoughts here are muddled or unclear. I can pretty easily convince myself that a lot of what I'll call "smaller" bad deeds are primarily deterred by the threat of consequences: I never shoplifted a candy bar because it wasn't worth the perceived consequences. But I have a substantially harder time convincing myself that most people don't commit "grander" crimes largely because of a similar fear. Taking murder as the example and myself as a case study, I cannot fathom committing a murder because it feels wrong, there is a part of my mind that recoils at just the thought of it. Is that because the potential consequences of that act are ingrained into my psyche, or is there another reason? I'm inclined toward the latter, certainly. Not to mention that punishments geared toward deterrence often seem to not prevent murder from occurring. I don't have any grand insights here, just sharing my observations on the topic, as it's come up surprisingly often recently in my experience on the internet.

NoOneNew 6y ago
So I do understand your viewpoint because I absolutely shared it in the past and at no point do I want you to think that I'm about to speak down at you. A lot of people have never been in a real life scenario to experience the actual decision process of doing "bad deeds". Which is actually good. The world is technically a better place because more and more people never have to experience the thought process first hand. However, they sometimes pretend they have, but they really haven't. I was in that field for quite a while. First time parents find an issue with this too. People who figure they themselves are perfect angels incapable of harm, now have to care for their new little angel. An angel doesn't protect a weak little angel from the horrors of the world. What happens when someone abuses or abducts their child? Remember that Olympic physician who was touching all those underage girls? One of the fathers begged the judge for 5 min in a locked room with the guy. When denied, he still charged at the bastard in the courtroom. I bet you 100% that father would have always said he would never do such a thing prior to this event happening. We all lie that we are incapable or evil deeds. No, we need the right circumstances to ignore the consequences. We are afraid of retaliation until we no longer fear it for "good reasons". If you live a life where you never test those waters, hey that's a pretty good easy life. But theres something else to be said about understanding and accepting ones shadow prior hand so you dont go ballistic accidentally. I think the thought that you are incapable of evil is more dangerous than knowing you are capable of it. Because you never question if what you are doing is right or wrong if you are already biased that you can only do good.
- Pryde 6y ago
  Hey, thanks for engaging and no worries, nothing in your comment struck me as condescending. I see your point here, and will grant that I've been fortunate to not have been in a situation in which I've had to consider anything approaching a "bad deed". Most of my thoughts on the subject are purely hypothetical, and informed by conversations with my dad, who has Seen Some Shit. Looking back on the 2 times I can think of where I have considered striking someone to cause harm (both in middle and high school, a bully and a fight respectively), it seems to me that there is an element of considering consequences, but in neither circumstance were those consequences external. In both cases, it was very much a question of "am I going to feel bad about this later?", which prompted the question of justification rather than punishment. Perhaps at a certain level this is the same thing, but it seems at least qualitatively different to me, a kind of fear of my own judgment rather than that of another person. Would you generally consider this to be the same process, or not? In either case, I can only wholeheartedly agree that perceiving oneself as incapable of evil is a Bad Idea. It seems dangerous to me for much the same reason you laid out, and I will occasionally attempt to engage in the kind of introspection necessary to grapple with what I might be capable of in a similar situation. I'm hesitant to say I'm incapable (psychologically) of doing something terrible in a similar situation, and my previous comment was from the reductionist point of view of a spherical murderer in a vacuum, as it were. Were I in that father's position, I know that I would feel _justified_ in taking that kind of action, which may prompt me to seek the opportunity, which is again where I see a slight difference from being prohibited solely by the fear of consequences, if that makes sense. Again, thanks for taking the time to respond!

i_haz_rabies 6y ago

Yeah, that's the mechanism I'm describing. Droughts, storms and volcanoes are on a totally different scale than nuclear war, climate change, or topsoil erosion though. You could argue that we're in control of those problems, but I'm not holding my breath.

NoOneNew 6y ago
Not in control, we just aren't fully at their whim like we used to. We have advanced warning systems for storms. Systems that weren't even a fantasy prior to 1920. Now we have evacuation infrastructure, shelters, preparedness plans on huge scales. Perfect? By our standards, no. But perfect compared to folks who lived in the 1800s. I get you think the world is fading away and there are problems left to solve. You are doing a great disservice to the giant's shoulders you stand on that have put in the effort and sacrifice that allow you to worry about this set of problems. They had far harsher problems with less tools than we have today.
- i_haz_rabies 6y ago
  I don't think that's true. They had relatively small-scale problems with huge, but narrowly distributed consequences. We have global-scale problems with huge, widely distributed consequences. It's great that we can predict storms and mitigate droughts... but that will not help if someone sets off an accidental nuclear exchange. That peasant from the 1800s and I are exactly equal in our ability to deal with that sort of problem.