About "Humans Are Bastards" and misanthropy in general

I think that hating everybody is a thing that wealthy people love to do. Especially when you have no reason to hate everybody. It's one thing if you're homeless and starving and part of some marginalized group to say you hate the world, but when you're a white straight male and you (or your parents) make $100K a year I think it's safe to say society has been pretty good to you.

Yeah. Unless your parents are beating you, or ignoring you, or your being attacked by people because of your money or something like that, then having all the cash in the world won't mean much.

Only then are rich kids allowed to complain.

I think.

However, despite the emphasis on cynicism in the media, I do think it makes the moments of optimism and triumphant Idealism more significant.

That's why we have the Real Life section of the Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming page. To remind us these things do happen. There's always a chance(a slim chance sometimes) for things to improve.

When one side it's at it's strongest, that's when it's at it's weakest as well.

edited 15th Sep '12 1:23:16 PM by HandsomeRob

I'm not talking about abusive parents. Obviously that's another disadvantage. I'm talking about people that I am 100% sure that their parents did not abuse them who still like to complain about how horrible the world is.

I'm pretty sure the world is usually statistically better nowadays than it were years ago, in most aspects.

What's that have to do anything? Just because your life doesn' "objectively" suck doesn't mean they're happy, and unhappy people tend to complain.

Oh yeah. I agree.

Those types are the most annoying. Though you bring up another point:

People will assume those with money are those types of people anyway.

We ironically enough tend to distrustful(sometimes justifiably) of those with prestige and power, assuming that they use that power to give themselves an advantage, and as thus think the worst of them on principle.

That may be a good point, but for some it seems like whining.

edited 15th Sep '12 3:31:15 PM by HandsomeRob

I don't think people need to stop feeling bad just because somebody else feels worse. I don't think they're obligated to care about anyone else's problems either, because those problems aren't theirs. That said, if they feel that way, they shouldn't outright complain themselves, otherwise they're just selfish assholes.

I don't think anybody owes anything to anybody else, and no one is under any "obligation" to fix a society's problems. I certainly don't think all Humans Are Bastards because any experience would tell you otherwise, but trying to browbeat people into doing something they don't feel like doing will generally have an adverse effect.

I think the idea that "you are well off. You have no right to see the world as bad" is a dangerous idea. The fact that you are well off does not mean that other people are; doesn't mean that other people treat people nicely all the time; doesn't mean that there are problems in this world that needs to be addressed and fixed.

I am not saying that any rich person doesn't have the "right" to be unhappy. However, being unhappy is not the same as being a misanthrope and hating the world. Nothing those people experience justifies that, and I'm pretty sure of it because one can't possibly be wronged by the entire human race.

No one would experience that from the entire human race, though. You can't tell them that their problems don't matter as much as others, because perception is reality. If one were to simply dislike their complaining, that's one thing, but looking down on them only proves their point.

I never said that their problems don't matter. Remember, I'm not talking about unhappiness of every kind, I'm talking about a hatred of the entire world or our race. I just commented that it bothers me that some people get to enjoy the work of people they will later claim to "hate" without even knowing. And I'm referring mostly to teenagers I see everywhere.

edited 15th Sep '12 6:52:43 PM by Teraus

It could just be a matter of projecting. Many wealthy people aren't the most scrupulous individuals, and since they tend to mostly associate with other wealthy people they see the same lack in those around them. In that situation it would be easy to project that onto everyone else if only to justify their own continued attitudes and behaviors.

No, you were not talking about being unhappy. You were talking about hating the state of the world as it is. The fact that you're lucky enough to be well off doesn't mean that the world is perfect. It doesn't evrn mean that it is good enough to warrant a "not hatred".

The problem is what they do about it. There is a difference in between whinging about the state of the world and using the benefits of being well off to do something about it.

The world is obviously not perfect, but it is good. There are always more "good" things happening, they just don't get noticed because people take them for granted. For every death and devastation, there was once a birth and a life. Now, if you don't consider "life" to be a good thing in itself, then death isn't a bad thing either. A similar logic can be used about most problems with the world.

However, I am not saying that people shouldn't try to improve the world.

edited 15th Sep '12 10:34:50 PM by Teraus

You cannot really prove that. Not even when you yourself are being well off because you might be an exception case. You cannot prove that the world is Crapsack World either, or that it is neither. All are legitimate positions given the evidence.

I don't see how seeing the world as bad and hating it for the state it is in is an invalid position so long as you're not whining about it and tries to do something about it.

Considering what some people had to due to become wealthy, I'm not surprised that some rich people hold a negative view of humanity.

Actually, I can. It is simple logic. Anything bad is necessarily the lack of something good. Try to think of a bad thing that is not the lack of a preexisting good.

That's just good and bad being mutually exclusive. Try proving that there is absolutely more good than bad in this world. The fact that there is good doesn't mean that it is enough to balance out the bad, not that there is proof otherwise either.

In fact, judging the world to be either good, bad or neutral in the first place is never a rational exercise in the first place because there is no rational method of proving such and such is good in the first place. Placing value on things is not a rational thing.

What I am trying to say is that you need the perspective of something good to perceive something as bad, because the bad is something that opposes something considered good, or a mere lack. However, you don't need the perspective of something bad to perceive something as good.

You don't suffer from the lack of something before that thing starts existing. You suffer after you have a perspective of that thing and feel its loss.

That means it is logically impossible for there to be more bad things than good things in the world, because bad things require preexistent good things. However, good things don't require preexistent bad things, because the lack is not perceived as bad before the existence of the good thing.

If you can think of something that doesn't follow this rule, go ahead and say it.

I'm not sure that your logic is sound. It takes the stance that there's only good and bad without taking into account average or normality. Being pain free comes to mind, as the "good" is merely an absence of a bad. However, pleasure is not the same thing as "not in pain".

I disagree. Good and bad are both properties that do not exist unless you believe it to be so. So seeing thing X as good and seeing it as bad as both as rational as each other because you cannot absolutely prove that X has this amount of good/bad in it. X is only as good or bad as you make it. And I would argue that bad is much more than just a lack of good, because there is a "neutral" in which things are perceived as normal and not judged at all. It just is.

And as you say, you cannot see the value of things with loss. Therefore it stands to reason that you cannot perceive having something as "good" without having ever lose it. That's why spoilt people who are born rich and never had to live in poverty don't value their wealth in the same way as you and I will and throw around their money like nothing because to them that is normal. It is not "good" for them to be wealthy. Their wealth is "just is".

edited 17th Sep '12 9:18:33 PM by IraTheSquire

I can actually perceive things as good without losing them. Not everyone is like that. It is much easier to perceive it once you've lost it, but if you have a perspective of how your life would be without it, you can value it without losing it.

Anyway:

Death is considered bad because of life. Likewise, every form of devastation, decay and disappearance is only considered bad because there was previously a thing considered good that was opposed by something.

Pain is considered bad because there is a model of comfort in our minds. It is a form of excess. Every perception can be dissatisfactory if it is either excessive or lacking in comparison to this "model". Pain is not inherently bad, either: there are specific instances in which pain can be satisfactory (like the typical pain after exercise, or whatever masochists feel).

Ugliness doesn't exist without models of beauty, either. And yes, the models do come first. There is no "model" for ugliness: it's just lack of beauty. It is a mere deviation of the model, which is subjective.

Stupid things are only perceived as stupid when a person is smart enough to see that.

And so on...

Anyway, I don't think it will be that easy to convince you that good needs to exist before bad, and bad can only be perceived because of the perspective of good. There is neutrality, yes, but this line of neutrality greatly fluctuates as it depends on the standards of each person. Good is still perceived first, though. Still, the fact stands that nothing justifies a hatred for the entire human race, because bad things are done by individual people, not by the race as a whole.

edited 19th Sep '12 1:04:16 PM by Teraus

I think most historians will notice that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression compared with the holocausts of history was small. These holocausts meant as an offering to the gods, or to king and country, or the future happiness of mankind.

Because the crimes of Caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The number of victims of robbers, highwaymen, rapists, gangsters and other criminals at any period of history is negligible compared to the massive numbers of those cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion, just policy, or correct ideology. (It can also be taken as a sign that "moral" conscience is not a true indicator of goodness - it can compel one to kill for the sake of one's group, if it were in such interest.)

You can apprehend why one would want to hate the "human race" as you see how bottomless a pit humanity can fall into. Nihilists worship this so-called fact as an excuse to indulge in their darkness. There was one Arthur Koestler who suggested that there was a defect in the human neocortex that allowed these atrocities to occur. But to deny all the good that exists is not a sign of realism, but of ostracism.

edited 19th Sep '12 1:26:26 PM by QQQQQ

Yep, it's the old "moral" versus "ethics" thing.

My point is that, yes, bad things do happen. There are horrible and completely deluded people in the world. But those are still just a part of the species, not eveyone.

It's just like when people say the "we" destroy the planet. That "we" enslaved people. "WE" didn't do anything, THEY did. Leave me out of your ridiculous generalizations.

And I hear that all the time, it's so damn annoying...

I'm not saying that I'm perfect. Still, the bad things people commit are blown way out of proportion in comparison to whatever good deeds they do.

edited 19th Sep '12 1:34:50 PM by Teraus

These "badly" people who have done badly things are still people in the end, that is why. I suppose humanity is the first of its kind to come to terms with the kind of mortality it bears. The death of old age, the intra-species conflict, its loneliness in the cosmos, and the possible end to the species with the introduction of the atom bomb. I think it's a beautiful thing, in a way.

Those people who have annoyed you to no end about the negativity potential inherent in humanity - it bears resonances with the way a neurotic would conjure up about 10,000 ways something can go wrong, skimming over the part where it can go right. Now that's annoying, eh?

I don't believe in bad people - just people who bear things that lead to making badness out in the world.

edited 19th Sep '12 1:47:32 PM by QQQQQ