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.
How can you separate people creating the social conditions from the social conditions themselves
I don’t.
It is human nature that brought upon those conditions.
Human nature isn’t a thing.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
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.
Hot take, bro.
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.
Cool, but you’re not knocking down anything I’ve said with that take.
