I think the bystander effect is overplayed for variety of reasons, mostly for political narratives (people are worse than before, less religion means worse peop

I think the bystander effect is overplayed for variety of reasons, mostly for political narratives (people are worse than before, less religion means worse people, people suck in general, city people are bad - country people are good, etc). I'm constantly seeing people intervene around me. I think its popularity is proof of how far divorced the social sciences can be from reality and how people thirsty for a narrative will find that narrative. I sometimes read /r/letsnotmeet and a lot of stories end with "...and no one bothered to help me" when a woman was being harassed. The top comment is almost always, "Did you ask for help? Scream? Signal anyone? Do anything?" The answer is always "no." The top commenter often reminds the author that what seems terribly important to you may look like an everyday conversation to others. The harasser looks like he could have been the girl's boyfriend to someone on the outside. The stories that do involve pleas for help all seem to end with someone helping out. People want to intervene when they realize there's an opportunity to do so. There's something perverse about assuming we're all cold calculating machines who don't care about others. It seems like the truly shitty people want to believe this to make themselves feel better about their own apathy. Its classic projection.