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People act based on circumstance. If there is a lot of food, people will lean towards sharing their food, and helping others - even anonymously in a truly "alt
by JauntyHatAngle 4y ago
People act based on circumstance.
If there is a lot of food, people will lean towards sharing their food, and helping others - even anonymously in a truly "altruistic" sense.
If everyone is starving, people will lean towards violence and stealing.
Does this "expose the rotten core within us?", or is it just saying we have the capacity for both? If we were truly completely rotten we wouldn't share in either case.
The fact is that environment and circumstance are inexorably tied in with our behaviour - a fact that we seem to wish to see negatively, our ideal being a perfect person who operates with true altruism in all circumstances regardless of personal cost.
Throwing our hands up and saying "go look at yourself in the mirror" is missing the big picture in my view, which is that if you want a good behavioural outcome, the environment and context of the behaviour is one of the biggest factor, and is a big target to attempt to improve. If more people are operating in a positive environment, you get more positivity.
Personal accountability, yes, is a thing, but is quite a lot more difficult to instil and improve from within a smaller slice of the world, like an app, and is more of a greater societal concern or otherwise would require propagation of an ideal with a reach that is quite hard to achieve through your app.
- anthropodie 4y agoI agree people are not rotten to the core but we keep blaming system and thus get rid of any personal accountability. Both are important. But so far it seems people have forgotten "looking at mirror". Everyone keeps blaming everyone else. So many conflicts would automatically get diffused if people looked within. Nobody wants to do that because it's hard. Blaming others and system is easy. Platforms providing healthy environment is equally important to personal accountability. Also comparing our social media squabbles to food security is not right imho.
- dumpsterlid 4y agoPeople havent forgotten anything. People are generally the same as they have always been except perhaps on average they are more educated at a global level.
- mistermann 4y agoWhat if people don't know how to look within? If you think about it, not only do we not teach such things, these sorts of ideas very often get mocked and dismissed as "woo woo".
- MarkMarine 4y agoI don’t think your proposed truth is always true, do you have any data to back that up?
- pksebben 4y agothey made a couple of statements. Which are you asking for clarification on?
- MarkMarine 4y agoIf there is a lot of food, people will lean towards sharing their food, and helping others - even anonymously in a truly "altruistic" sense. If everyone is starving, people will lean towards violence and stealing. This.
- MarkMarine 4y agoThis seems like game theory, and there are historical incidents, like WWII where people were put into forced famines and didn’t act this way. People aren’t purely self interested or “logical” there is something else there besides self interest
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]