this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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A good listen and all, if a bit overly optimistic. Let me explain. The video concludes basically that humans aren't intrinsically bad or good, but that human nature is shaped by social conditions. Agreed. But those social conditions didn't just manifest themselves. They were willed into existence and shaped to become what they currently are.
The Empire in the video? Humans and human nature. One does not build what can be described as an evil system purely by accident. Fascism and slavery didn't happen as whoopsies. Slaver ships didn't accidentally discover some stowaways and decided to roll with it. Decisions were made and actions were taken with clear intent.
And responsibility for evil in society extends far beyond those that are the face of evil. Everyone who is OK with it happening is to blame. The person who views the iphone as a status symbol couldn't care less about suicides in Apple factories. If you were to give everyone an iphone, there's a pretty high chance that person would oppose it - what about their status symbol? Sure, they'd mask it as 'what about those that worked for the money to buy it?' - see the whole student debt forgiveness debate.
I am probably emphasising evil here, but given a room with a bouquet of lillies in it and a pile of shit, which would you turn your attention to first?
Is there potential for good as well as for evil in humans? Sure. People come together when there are natural disasters. Localized. Small groups of people in the grand scheme of things.
What did it in for me was the covid pandemic. A truly global scale phenomenon. At the start I really thought we could do this. Isolate for a month ish. Stay indoors was all we had to do to limit spread. We couldn't even do that proper because people were worried about their freedom. If that's not selfishness, I don't know what is.
Then remember the toilet paper panic buying? No making sure everyone has some. Fuck you, got mine. Then the vaccines came out and we got a significant amount of people questioning them and actively pushing against them.
The video is a nice story and has a very nice speaking voice attached to it, but it's way too optimistic in my view. And I feel it does a disservice by shifting blame to the conditions imposed by society as a separate entity from the members of said society. People watch it and say 'hey, we're inherently good. we help each other in times of floods' so they're less prone to reflection (which the video, to its credit, does state as a source of good).
The video does not ignore that humans have a hand in creating our material conditions... you can't state that as a flaw in the reasoning when that point is kinda central to the whole argument. Yes, we created these systems, and the argument given is that it reflects human nature. This video refutes that argument.
Yes. And that is where it falls apart on a naively optimistic note.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves? It is human nature that brought upon those conditions. Humans made it happen and I'm pretty sure nobody said 'hey let's set aside our nature of being good for a moment and do this evil thing real quick, I promise it'll be fun!'. Active or passive participants, we're all participants.
Furthermore, you cannot just say 'we did some bad stuff, but it's because of the conditions around. we're actually good people that happen to be in a tight spot'. Those are by definition not good people. Everyone can be a nice person if the times are good. Actions, rather than intent, are the indicators of one's alignment.
Asked to do something you don't want to or find morally reprehensible but you do it anyway (usually because of fear of consequences if you don't)? Not an inherently good person, as I suspect is the case for most of us.
I don't.
Human nature isn't a thing.
No, of course not. I have to assume you didn't even watch the video I sent. And being a participant does not make you a willing participant.
That's not what I or the video I sent have said. Such an absurd strawman. You have already mentioned that it concludes we aren't inherently bad or good.
Hot take, bro.
Cool, but you're not knocking down anything I've said with that take.
I am puzzled as to what exactly you mean. I watched the video until min 17 out of 19, then realized it's got no deeper message beyond that point so stopped it. Lad spoke about philosophies, how different philosophers thought people were good or others thought they were bad then had a weird intermezzo blaming imperialism. The weird part was the style change not the actual blaming, mind you - that's all valid, but still serves to prove an actual human nature.
Spoke some stuff about look at all cultures in Africa being friendly, and then babbled on about how humans aren't good or bad but they are victims of their circumstances.
Overall a mediocre video from an argumentation standpoint, but figured hey, why not give it a shot?
I never said we're all willing participants. Active or passive participants - willing or unwilling. Still participants. Maybe it clears it up, hm?
Paraphrasing the video it does indeed say that humans aren't bad or good, but their actions are due to the social environment. Do tell me how this is completely disconnected from what I said? I took it a couple of steps further.
Social environment bad (somehow, not tied to human nature because social environments come into being by themselves and exist even without humans, if I'm understanding this as you mean it - cause otherwise, if people were responsible, they would be bad people. but the video tells us there are no bad people);
BUT people not bad or good means it's basically not their fault for anything cause they aren't bad if they do bad stuff. But look people are good because they come together sometimes.
I honestly don't understand what point you are trying to make. If it is that human nature isn't a thing and that's it, well... best of luck to ya. Is it not in your nature to argue with random people on the internet?
Maybe if you are trying to make a point don't just drop a youtube link and expect people to understand the same thing as you did or expect them suddenly be enlightened. Did you understand it? Care to elaborate on what you understood from it? I did. Let's compare notes.
Edit: Obligatory I'm not your bro, guy.
I've said this three times: neither I nor Andrew said societies are not created by people.
They are indeed bad people. I don't know why you think i would disagree, or that the video suggests people can't be bad. Of course they can.
What??
Stick to your point. You were first claiming it said people aren't inherently bad or good. That's right. Then you slipped it to people can't be bad or good. That's a totally different statement no one claimed. Now, somehow the claim has morphed to saying that people are inherently good.
What?
I can't decide if you're trolling or genuinely incompetent. It's not hard to understand.
Human nature is not a fixed concept. It's a buzzword thrown around by people trying to sell their philosophy to you. People do what they can based on their material conditions. We are not inherently pulled toward being pro social or anti social.