>So for me, I don't think it's so much about self-deception and more about self-belief (and other-belief), as I'd argue that people who believe in themselves an

>So for me, I don't think it's so much about self-deception and more about self-belief (and other-belief), as I'd argue that people who believe in themselves and others are happier and more successful. An aspect of Self belief is self deception. This is when you believe in something that isn't technically true. This is the literal definition of what the words mean in English. I believe this aspect of self belief is what podcast is referring to. >By what objective measure are people terrible? There are objective measurements of universally terrible people. It is hard to measure though because it lives on a gradient and it also lives in contradictory circumstances. So people can be good and terrible at the same time. They can be good in one situation and terrible in another situation. There are even people who are neutral, or in other words people with zero allegiance to good or evil. While the gradient is hard to measure, people on the extremes are much easier to identify and measure. Psychopathy is one such condition. See here: https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unburdened-mind/ https://www.damninteresting.com/the-unburdened-mind/. While not mentioned in the article psychopathy is actually physically detectable with a brain scan and can be correlated with associated behaviors. Through the existence of people at the extremes and people obviously not at the extremes we can infer that the story is much more complex than people are "generally good". >I appreciate you continuing with me on this and reinforcing that I listen to the podcast because for many years now I've talked about being honest with oneself and emotional honesty and such, and I think I want to focus more on loving oneself and others. In such conflicts, choosing to believe in our good intentions, our good abilities, our overall goodness instead of choosing to believe in the opposite. So thank you for helping me see this more clearly today. No problem. I think the difference between our views of the world is that I view it through a data driven perspective while you view it through a more personal lens with personal experiences touching your interpretation of the world. I'll just say this. The truth, if it exists at all, lies in the data. But like my point, the truth isn't necessarily what you want here is it?