I have ignored this fact for most of my life, thinking that people are just ignorant sometimes, but now I've finally accepted that people are full of sh*t. There's nothing else to that. We are stupid, egoistic, hypocrit, naive or cynical. We are suffering from the birth to death and that causes us to behave like assholes all the time. It is actually a relief to just accept it. People just ain't no good, like Nick Cave put it perfectly in his song.
We really have to put effort to it if we want to be even tolerable by the other people (or other species!). And there's no end to that - ever. (Well, at least as long as we exist, that is.)
So there's always room for some more blues songs talking about it. So there you go, just get used to it. Perhaps make a song or two now and then when you feel mistreated. There are lots of people there that you are mistreating yourself, so there's always a request for some news songs out there.
My vote is still for ignorance. Believing people don't realize how annoying they are is how I keep my rosy disposition.
That and I believe there is a large segment of the population with undiagnosed mental disorders, but that may just be a case of when you are in a jar of loose screws everything looks like a loose screw.
Actually I know where you're coming from. The glass isn't half full or half empty for me - it's usually completely empty. That's the life of a grumpy old man with a depressive personality.
If you work on the basis that EVERYONE is full of shit until they prove otherwise, then you can only be pleasantly surprised.
If that here true there would never have been civilization. No organized religion. no common good. no public education, no labor unions, no representative democracies. One might think that these things developed for personal gain, but the truth Is that long ago humans realized they can benefit more If the whole group benefits first. Otherwise we only look after ourselves and our own offspring and wouldn't socialize. The proof is in your lawn furniture. Do you have lawn furniture? you wouldn't if the human race were inherently bad.
Yes people are egotistical, we see the world from our own point of view and are cynical because we are skeptical of other points of view. We are hypocritical but because we even have a word for that concept mans that we are couscous of it and try not to be (everybody could be a hell of a lot more hypocritical than they are). Naïvety is due to a lack of understanding, this is why education is important as well as patience for others.
Sure nobody is perfect, but we are more good than bad.
sounds like you are seeing some bad in people and extrapolating that across the whole human race. I am all the things that you listed above apskarp but I also so much more.
oh and I'm full of shit because I ate lunch. ----------
Last Edited by on Oct 24, 2010 12:55 PM
I can't travel my world in a state of disalusion I'm a nice guy then again I'm a Nasty Muther, Its a 2 way street, I walk down the Middle:)
Am i the same Muther in real Life as I make out on the PC or Forum YES,if ya standing in front of me talking shit i will tell you strait up Stop Bull shiting me:)
I won't beat around the bush i will call you a tush I'm a reactor you throw agression or shit at me it comes strait back ten fold:/
Talk sense to me I give it back, NastyOldDog Isn't in command 24/7 NiceOldDog is But then again NautyOldDog comes out at times :) I will be the Dog you want me to be Just don't Bullshit Me:) ---------- Or Break my Man Rules:)
Last Edited by on Oct 24, 2010 5:59 PM
Sure mercedesrules (has that always been your username?) The things I listed can be looked at as negatives. I hope you post was facetious. If not, look at it this way: the great cathedrals of Europe could not have been built without cooperation, our constitution would never have been written for the people if our founding fathers hadn't been benevolent to the people. Don't like public education? maybe you would prefer a feudal system. The reason for public education is the belief that the populace as a whole would benefit if everyone were educated. If people were truly egotistical they would believe it to be counterproductive for anybody but themselves to be educated. Survival of the fittest, you know. Representative democracies provide a way for the people to run their own government from the bottom, maybe all politicians are jerks but if you couldn't replace them every few years, we would you risk violent revolution. The alternative might be a dictator who quashes revolution with extermination. Sure none of those things are perfect but there are worse alternatives. If you think the list I gave you is bad, go spend a week living with a family in Darfur or Iran or North Korea or........ ----------
Last Edited by on Oct 24, 2010 6:55 PM
Sure Littoral, keep smokin' what's coming out of that hookah. and save the couscous for when you get the munchies, I hear it goes well with falafel. ----------
People are ok, it's society that's messed up. In small groups people can really do quite a bit of good but when they're confined to a larger population they become cold and unfeeling because there's so many of em' that a single person just doesn't matter anymore. When you're in a small group then everyone matters and is important. Compare a small town to a big city. Small towns everyone knows each other, they watch out for each other and lend each other a hand. Big City, no one will even call 911 when they see someone getting stabbed to death on the street in front of their apartment. This is why I just won't live in a larger city, I feel boxed in like I'll go crazy. I'd rather be out in the country near a small town where it's quiet and peaceful. The older I get even more so.
I am constantly surprised & reassured by random acts of kindness, for most folk this is their "default setting", I look at it like the 80/20 rule...perhaps 20% of the population are greedy, self-serving assholes, but they cause 80% of the grief.
Even when people cause you grief, it's not always because that's what they specifically set out to do, it can just be an unfortunate side effect. Conversely, just because someone is cooperating with you doesn't mean that they are doing it because you share the same motives & aspirations. Even people working together in an effective team can have vastly differing perceptions of what they are doing & why. Sometimes it just suits people to work together, however erstwhile & universally beneficial the objective/result.
It is just what it is...once you grasp that and realise that the world does not have a vendetta against you, life gets a lot easier to deal with...there's always a certain amount of shit flying about, sometimes you're just in the way of it.
Interestingly, expanding on what TN Frank says, I was watching TV the other night & it appears that the number "150" pops up a lot with regards to communities...average size of a pre industrial revolution village, many tribal peoples live in communities of <150, generally more than 150 friends gets to be too much to handle. Perhaps this contributes to the apathy found in cities, not that city dwellers are cruel, or unkind as a whole...it just comes with the environment.
Apskarp, I think most blues songs, if not songs & the arts in general, are largely about the good things in life.
Well, I was just driving with my car and trying to change lane when some a-hole didn't make room for me, instead he gave me a finger. How about that? ;)
There are lots of good in people, but in the end it's all about "me, me, mine". They also started co-operation negotiations in the company I work. Here in Finland they have to negotiate 6 weeks before firing anybody and even then you have several months of term of notice period, but they also closed some US site which meant that people are out od job in just one day. It's all about making money, that's it. There are lots of hypocrisy and ways of talking about how important it is to make these changes, blah, blah, blah, but that's all just ignoring the fact that people are just full of sh*t.
I'm playing the devil's advocate here, but please feel free to disagree and prove I'm wrong.
@ apskarp: I came to the same conclusion as you did a long time ago. Now, I just accept it.
As for Stickman's remark:
"No organized religion. no common good. no public education, no labor unions, no representative democracies."
I find that utterly objectionable, but won't argue my case further here 'cos the forum creed forbids discussing at least one of those topics. Just wanted the objection noted.
"Well, I was just driving with my car and trying to change lane when some a-hole didn't make room for me, instead he gave me a finger. How about that? ;)"
If you were walking into a store and following this same person they most likely would hold the door open behind them long enough for you to grab it or even open the door and say "after you" and let you go first. You would have said "thank you".
Having to deal with a person face-to-face instead of treating them like a box-on-wheels can make all the difference.
Traffic etiquette would be much different if we could all communicate telepathically. ---------- Ozark Rich __________ ##########
.....My username on here has always been mercedesrules. My post was not facetious. It was meant to point out that "good" and "bad" are subjective rather than objective. You admit that some might consider the things you mentioned as "negative". Instead of asking, "Is X good or bad?", one has to ask, "Is X good or bad FOR ME?" HarmonicaMick also sees problems for himself in the list. ----------
Stickman's list sounded like that John Lennon song.
If you look at how primate societies work, it's all about your place in the troop. What you're allowed to do by the alpha, what your not allowed to do, and what you can get away with behind his back. Sadly, aggression, submission, deception and infidelity are part of our genetic programming. We try to use our intelligence to dress it up and call it other things, or excuse it in other ways, but it is the animal inside us. Life is about balancing the general good of the troop - the altruistic bit - with the good of the individual. Total selflessness means you give up everything, including the chance to reproduce, total selfishness means you get driven away from the group (or worse) and again fail to reproduce. Altruistic behaviour is far easier when life is more comfortable and resources plentiful. When resources become scarcer, the risk of conflict between and within societies increases and deceptive, selfish behaviour becomes more prominent.
Guess what's happening globally right now?
As for those great cathedrals, well the cynic in me says that those who built them did it to feed their families and those who commissioned them knew that (in the words of Bob Marley) "A hungry man is an angry man". More about maintaining power - keeping the rabble gainfully distracted - than about Mediaeval social care or art or anything else.
@ MrV: I think you put it fairly well. Though, at least where I come from - London - there seems to be an awful lot of unaccountable meanness in people.
In the last few months alone, I've had one person - a complete stranger - flick a lighted cigarette directly at me for no readily apparent reason, and on another occasion someone threw an egg at me from a moving car. Those incidents are by no means isolated.
In each case there was nothing to gain other than the sheer 'fun' of doing it. These were young people but, I was never like that when I was young.
It seems to me as though people, at least for the most part, have a default setting of 'mean'; our nature is not a nice one. Even in the case of institutions and ideologies that ostensibly have a 'positive agenda' there is often - if not invariably - an ulterior motive at work. Examples are easy enough to think of, though, alas, more controversial to describe on here. ---------- YouTube SlimHarpMick
Last Edited by on Oct 25, 2010 11:16 AM
It takes courage to step outside of the comfort of fear, resignation and cynicism, but the rewards are huge for those who do, and the people around them.
A few people are born mean, unsurprisingly, they don't see it that way...We are not on a downward spiral to meanness, living in highly populated conurbations desensitises us to the needs of the individual...a person who may show kindness in a small group, will most likely behave the way that everyone else does in a city.
Humans are social animals, however our very large 'megatribes' in which some of us now live, allow a sense of anonnimity to hide behind, allowing the mean a ready supply of fresh targets (try a career as a mugger in a small rural community, few targets, all of whom know where you live?) and the otherwise good people a shield of apathy. In, hard rural/isolated communities kindness is the default...the Tuareg in the Sahara give shelter to anyone in trouble in the desert, even they're worst enemy.
More people are living in abject poverty in the world today than in any other time in history.
More people are not living in abject poverty in the world today than in any other time in history.
A smaller percentage of people are living in abject poverty today than at any other time in human history.
You are much less likely to die a violent death now than at any other point in history.
Historically, dictatorships have collapsed most frequently when things are IMPROVING. When you've been down so long that you have no hope you don't revolt. It's when you see hope, but the progress doesn't live up to your expectations.
We used to be worried that that guy over there was going to steal our grain, torch our fields, rape our women, kill our men and take our land. Today we are worried that some jerk is going to cut us off in traffic. I see hope that our expectations are rising, even if we get a little cranky along the way. :)
Akskarp, Part of your recent attitude about people is based on corporate issues that affect your job. Corpoeations, though, are not people. Corporations are machines. That's a cold, hard fact, and for the most part, that's the way it has to be. Corporations have no heart. They're not supposed to have a heart. Having a heart would be detrimental to the corporation.
As for that finger thing, yeah that'll piss anybody off. But that finger-flipper is not everybody.
