Semi-cheesy question Are most people inherently good?

Magnetron
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 19:25:56 +0000

MOD, my feeling is that selfishness is its own form of bad. I was using the grocery line as an example of the least objectionable things that people do, small personal benefit for one but a penalty for many. Some recent examples with more risk: S1 and I pushed a stalled car off of the 520 floating bridge; W ran into traffic when a blind woman got disoriented during a wind storm and all the other drivers were just driving around her; I have stopped guys hitting kids and women (and I’m kinda small myself).

At each of these, at least a hundred other people could have done the kind and good thing but chose not to. Given a choice between doing a bad thing or a good thing, I think most will choose the good one. Given the choice between bad, good, or nothing, people overwhelmingly choose to do nothing, and I think that in itself is a bad thing.