• Christian
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      352 months ago

      I don’t remember where I read this quote originally and I can only paraphrase it, but observing people living in a capitalist society and concluding that human nature is self-centeredness and greed is equivalent to observing workers in a factory that is poisoning their lungs and concluding that human nature is to cough.

      • @[email protected]
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        152 months ago

        That’s a nice quote, thank you. I looked into it. It’s by Andrew Collier:

        To look at people in capitalist society and conclude that human nature is egoism, is like looking at people in a factory where pollution is destroying their lungs and saying that it is human nature to cough.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 months ago

          Primary goal is to survive in the environment you are in, how many might have a desire to escape that environment but lack the ability to do so? Leave it all behind and live in a cabin in the woods isn’t exactly an unheard of idea.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 months ago

            The issue, as I see it, is that most people struggle to envision a society beyond capitalism. Capitalist ideology is embedded in every aspect of our lives. It appears in our mindset, in books, movies, and even in children’s television shows. The narrative that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough, and that poverty is simply the result of laziness, is both powerful and pervasive.

            The idea that everyone should live in isolated cabins is neither a realistic vision nor a desirable goal for society.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 months ago

                You mean like a hermit? I think that’s a rare fantasy. But if you want to do it, sure, go for it. Isn’t there a lot of space and wilderness in Canada?

    • @[email protected]
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      62 months ago

      I think “good” and “bad” are hard terms to apply to people objectively, but I do believe that most people value social coherence and are willing to do (the minimum amount of) something to maintain it. If you can’t believe at least that it means that all of those thin blue line people are right, and I’m just not willing to believe that’s true.

    • Cethin
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      32 months ago

      I would say most people are good. However, the human brain is pretty shit and easy to manipulate. It’s easy to make people view other people as not human or other to them, or to not think about them at all. Maybe that is “not good” in some definitions though. When face-to-face, I will bet every time on someone treating someone well. I’ll lose the bet occasionally, but I’ll be right more than wrong.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 months ago

      I was gonna go with “most people give a damn”, but I think you phrased it a bit more positively.

  • @[email protected]
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    102 months ago

    Hanlon’s razor. It’s pretty clear some people can be stupid and malicious simultaneously, or will even feign stupidity to hide malice.

    • Enigma Voice
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      12 months ago

      @CapriciousDay one of the most common misunderstandings about “razor principles” is that one should completely discard hypothesis that does not pass the razor. The thing is, razor principles is a priority-sorting mechanism, not discarding. The simpliest explanation for everything is God of The Gaps (and that’s how Occam’s Razor should had work in Occam’s reasonings), but we understand that God is not enough.
      Same goes for Hanlon’s Razor. If stupidity is not enough, you should go with the next hypothesis - malevolent supidity.

      @ParlaMint

  • Hemingways_Shotgun
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    242 months ago

    The notion that “facts matter”.

    I’ve spent my entire life believing that facts don’t care about feelings. That scientific truth doesn’t require your belief in it in order to be true. That at the end of the day, reasoning will beat emotion…

    By far the most dis-heartening thing about the last few years (to me) has been accepting the idea they “facts” are “whatever is shouted the loudest”.

    It, more than anything else, makes me feel helpless. If the enemy isn’t even playing with the same fact-sheet… How do you even begin to fight that?

  • forty2
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    122 months ago

    The ‘common’ part of ‘common sense’

  • @[email protected]
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    232 months ago

    Reincarnation - I’d like to believe I’ve met others before, maybe even many times. It would explain some stuff like why you’re irrationally drawn or repelled by certain people.

    • @[email protected]
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      72 months ago

      The thing that’s always gotten me about reincarnation is the lack of memory of past lives. Even if it were true and some small part of a person lives on, is it functionally different than a permanent death if they retain nothing from their past lives?

  • @[email protected]
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    82 months ago

    Heaven. Or just the idea that some part of the consciousness outlives the body. I really hate that this is all I get, there’s so much I’ll never get to do just because my parents decided when I was too young to decide for myself.

  • @[email protected]
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    592 months ago

    Karma - there are way too many shitty people who just continue to be shitty because nothing ever comes back to bite them. Meanwhile, people who actually try to help are kicked around the most.

    • Maeve
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      22 months ago

      That’s not the point of karma. And thoughts count, so what you wish for others comes back.

    • @[email protected]
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      122 months ago

      Fucking seriously… I wish there were aliens that could save us from ourselves, but it’s just oligarchs all the way down…

      • Maeve
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        22 months ago

        Epic of Gilgamesh.

        Anyway, if they were so benevolent and so much smarter than us, why would they impose their will, and especially if interference might make our extinction more rapid?