Humans Are Nicer Than We Think 372
derekmead writes "While everyone's always waxing like Lord Tennyson about nature being 'red in tooth and claw,' neuroscience and psychology are quietly telling us that we may be innately nicer than we think. Sure, we're not cuddly little bunny rabbits, but many lines of evidence over the past few decades have pointed toward some distinctly physical underpinning of basic morality and aversion to violence, implying that humans (and probably many other animals to) have a strong built-in 'try-not-to-punch-that-dude' mechanism. A recent study published in the journal Emotion, by psychologists Fiery Cushman, Allison Gaffey, Kurt Gray, and Wendy Mendes, provides some further evidence for the link, as the authors put it, 'between the body and moral decision-making processes.'"
A whole Journal on Emotion? (Score:4, Funny)
I would guess this journal doesn't have many subscriptions on the planet Vulcan.
Re:A whole Journal on Emotion? (Score:5, Funny)
In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that's one reason why news concentrate on bad issues. (On the other hand, everything on the world is well - the news report just lists the exceptions!)
But back to your point, in the long run it might be the opposite, that people tend to remember more good things while mind works to forget the crappy stuff.
I'm soooo sorry to rain on your parade (Score:5, Insightful)
But back to your point, in the long run it might be the opposite, that people tend to remember more good things while mind works to forget the crappy stuff
I am very sorry, but I need to point out one very important thing ---
Contrary to your assertion, the human mind remembers bad events that create bad vibes much more than good feeling events
Here's one experiment that you can carry out yourself ---
Go do 100 good things to one person --- open door for the person, pour drink for the person, say "Hello", sweep the yard, clean the car ... and so on
After you do all that, do one bad thing to that same person --- just one will do
You can slap that person, or punch him/her, or kick the cat or whatever
See how that person will react
Will that person forgive your one bad act because you have done 100 good things for him/her?
Or will that person remember you forever for that one bad thing that you did to him/her --- and forgot all about the other 100 good things that you have done?
Go try that out yourself, and see the result
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Assuming you are correct, the real question is: how much of this behavior is learned from other humans (parents, friends, etc), and how much of it is actually wired into the brain. Could it be that we just live in a dysfunctional society and therefore suffer from species-wide mental health issues? I look at my dog and she doesn't seem to be bothered by negative experiences (can't play with you right now, can't give you a treat right now, don't bite, don't lick, etc) so much. When being corrected she obvious
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Because these days you're trained to believe you can sue for them and turn "being a victim" into a very profitable advantage.
Re:I'm soooo sorry to rain on your parade (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'm soooo sorry to rain on your parade (Score:4, Insightful)
You can make this argument both ways, the reason altruism doesn't take over either is because the egoist among altruists wins, assuming of course he's proficient enough in the cheating and deception. Imagine for example a group of hunters. A group of egoists can easily starve one by one as they randomly starve. A group of altruists share their food, but it doesn't prevent famine. The egoist among altruists who keeps a little extra for himself survives, turning selection back towards egoism again. It's not like one is dominant over the other, it's a mix that keeps getting tweaked.
Re:I'm soooo sorry to rain on your parade (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you notice your examples of good and bad deeds are on completely different levels? Punching someone isn't a mirror image of saying hello, at least not where I live.
Say someone does try to beat you up, and a third person intervenes to "save" you. Same level of violence, one bad, one good deed.
I don't think you'll forget either.
Re:I'm soooo sorry to rain on your parade (Score:5, Interesting)
You could also turn it around. If you kicked someone every day for a year, I'm sure they'd remember the single day you gave that person a free lunch and a pat on the back.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
>Maybe that's one reason why news concentrate on bad issues. (On the other hand, everything on the world is well - the news report just lists the exceptions!)
I'm inclined to Bruce Schneier's point of view. News must be new - and rare. Things that happen all the time aren't new or news and nobody cares to be informed about them - the result is news of things that are rare and infrequent. His conclusion: anything that's on the news is by definition too low a risk to worry about.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's mostly because good news in most cases doesn't have much information in it: "everything is fine. no problems" is not really newsworthy.
If you look at C. Shannon's definition of information (being the reciprocal of probability), events that we expect to happen, mostly have a high probability and thus not much information to begin with. But events we expect are events we are well prepared for, thus the happening of those events is good news for us. Really big news is at first improbable and thus disruptive, it contradicts our expectation and leaves us unprepared. Thus big news in the most cases is bad news for us.
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Is it really news (though it is labelled such), if you can speak the reports synchronically?
(And yes, I know Soviet news - the only thing that changed was the name of the kolkhoz or the zavod, it was reporting about. We sometimes joked that there were never problems in the Soviet union, but their successful overcoming.)
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We sometimes joked that there were never problems in the Soviet union, but their successful overcoming.
Hah! I'd forgotten this one, thanks for reminding me. And I wasn't disagreeing with you or anything -- what news should be is similar to max self-information in the Shannon sense.
/.. I myself am too young to remember anything before the collapse, but I learned everything I ever want to know about what it was like from my parents...
Still I'm surprised, from what you said I'm guessing you actually hail from those parts, which I don't think is very common for
Re:In other news (Score:4, Funny)
- You know, in the Soviet union, they had crops like telephone poles!
- What, about that size?
- Nyet!
- Maybe about the same strength?
- Nyet!
- How then?
- About the same distance between each other!
No, your logic is flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
Recent dutch new story, some kids taped a pet mouse to a firework rocket. Why was this news? Because reporting each and every day the billions of pets NOT mistreated would make the news run a bit long.
News is something that is exceptional, not the norm. Today the sun came up, is NOT news. Today the sun didn't come up, that is news.
No need to dig deeper.
it would be nice (Score:3, Insightful)
to publish the study freely :-))
Fiery Cushman? (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps its because when you punch that dude you risk being expelled from the gene pool due to death or damage to reproductive organs. Nature (and thus humans) are usually only violent when violence increases their chance to reproduce it has nothing to do with morality.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has everything to do with morality, it IS morality.
The situation you describe is exactly where personal moral feeling comes from. Its nature telling you (by making you feel bad) that punching that dude is a risky strategy for yourself. The public side of morailty (what we tell others they should do) follows the same rule: My repoduction works better in a world where everybody tells everybody else not to punch each other.
Perhaps you meant "it has nothing to do with moral absolutes". Then I would agree with you.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I made an "artificial life" simulator - at one point in the simulation I gave the creatures the ability to kill one another (by attempting to occupy the same space at the same time, the bigger (and so, fitter and more able to reproduce) creature would win, and get a food boost as a bonus, too.) Population plummeted for many generations while the creatures slaughtered each other, but then a few generations later, population suddenly increased again - a mutation had learned how to avoid collisions and thus was able to more densely populate the available space. Within a short time, non-violent creatures became dominant over intentionally or accidentally violent ones by a ratio of more than 100:1.
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Within a short time, non-violent creatures became dominant over intentionally or accidentally violent ones by a ratio of more than 100:1.
Were you able to track the ratio of intentionally violent to accidentally violent ones?
There wasn't an "intentionally violent" boolean in the system, each creature could choose one possible action per turn (sleep, move forward, turn left, turn right, eat, drink, reproduce) based on their senses of the space around them and memory of recent actions and senses.
Accidental violence might be attributed to creatures which moved without consideration of what was infront of them, but I never got that deep into the analysis - I was mostly tracking population trends and life histories of selected creat
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I made an "artificial life" simulator too when I was young, in 10th grade in about 1990. I observed it repeat in cycles with about 100 cycles of conflict, then 5 cycles of cooperation, then 100 cycles of conflict again, and so on. (it was doing iterated prisoner dilemma, played by genetic algorithms with breeding and mutation).
My conclusion? That all these "experiments" are completely dependent on accidents of the way they got set up, and the link between algorithms and outcomes is poorly understood, and we shouldn't draw any moral or evolutionary conclusions from them.
Clearly, the "God" factor entirely determines what happens in the world - whether by design or accident. What I found interesting was that I was putting in what I thought were strong rewards for serial killers, but they never managed to reach a population density where they could interbreed, the "sheep" always strongly outnumbered the "wolves." I even tried giving them ability to recognize their kin (genetic similarity), but in my worlds they just wouldn't take off.
Re:Perhaps.... (Score:5, Funny)
Also when your environment forces you to take violence as a form of communication, where punching means "it was nice meeting you" and stabbing to death means "I didn't know how to express my issues so that we could solve them together".
So, I take it you're from The Bronx?
Bunnies ain't cuddly (Score:4, Insightful)
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I once saw two rabbits in what I assume was battle. The were both standing on their hind legs facing each other, and one of them jumped into the air and kicked the other one with the legs it had been standing on, then landed on its hind legs again. Most shocking/freaky animal behaviour I've ever actually seen in person.
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Re:Bunnies ain't cuddly (Score:4, Funny)
They can rip each other to shreds if the mood takes them.
Not to mention the Rabbit of Caerbannog [wikipedia.org] which has a vicious streak a mile wide.
In person? yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the highway? no, when anonymous? no.
And when in puberty? not a chance. The human child is a outright evil thing. Ever deal with a pack of teenage girls in a middle school? Satan is nice compared to those evil things.
The "punch" & Judy show. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's actually a good point. What does being anonymous do to the results of this study?
Re:not a chance. (Score:3)
A large part of our being nice relies on laws.
But look what happens to people "above the law". Copyright Legislators? Not Nice.
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when anonymous? no.
I humbly disagree. The FPS games I've played, most people were usually friendly and nice. Of course, there's an occasional moron out to spoil the fun but they are few in comparison, although much more noticeable.
People ganging up is bad, though. I don't think that's necessarily related to age. Defenseless adults get harassed at their jobs, too.
"Humans are nice" (Score:3)
This is outrageous. Who do these scientists think they are?
New Yorkers are humans, too!
Nice but dumb? (Score:2)
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That would mean everyone is dumber than I thought.
Of course the joy of being among the dumb ones is that you never realize you're dumb. Like my dad used to say: "There's always someone smarter than you. Always."
Re:Nice but dumb? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hanlon's Razor.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Re:Nice but dumb? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes! Stupid people can be educated, malicious people must be avoided.
Well Duh! (Score:2)
You mean the individuals of species that live in large groups need to get on with each other and not attack and kill each other all the time?
Who knew?
(Well, almost all biologists and anthropologists for decades, but hey)
That is begging the question (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance, it is known that bees have an unusual form of heredity which means that sisters are more closely related than they are to the next generation. Did the bee colony co-evolve cooperation and this hereditary mechanism? Why are bonobos socially cooperative and other chimpanzee races much less so?
Another example: wrens. In the breeding season these birds are strongly territorial. In winter they will find suitable hiding places and cluster in groups to keep warm.
Once again, correlation doesn't imply causation, and this subject is well worth investigating because of its potential importance to survival as population increases.
Re:That is begging the question (Score:4, Insightful)
They "evolved" to do so. That's the answer. Natural selection. Those who were co-operative at times were more successful and hence more likely to survive. But it doesn't extend to year-round co-operation like your wren example. In the breeding season, competition gives you a better chance of producing offspring. In the winter, co-operation gives you a better chance of surviving the winter and not waste your energy fighting (because not of the females are breeding then anyway). Maybe bonobos live a different way in a different environment to chimps, buy any chance?
There's no "magic" here. The species evolved this way because of a history of random choices of co-operation (or at least tolerance) versus competition and, over time, this converges to a pattern of least resistance to survival wherever they happen to habitate.
Humans co-operate when it's advantageous (collecting food), but not when it's not (fighting over women, protecting your family, etc.). It's no great mystery, unless you want to identify the EXACT point it evolved or the EXACT cause of the evolution - but that's not going to be any use to you at all, really. Evolution is random and only converges on a best solution by chance.
"Evolution is random" (Score:2)
Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
People are indeed nice, because they have learned via evolution (social or biological) that cooperation is more productive overall than fighting (just ask military people what is the reason for professional armies and how many soldiers shoot in the air during battles). However, the civilization system that we build promotes and rewards above else cheaters and sociopaths. And thus, the level of psychopathy is proportional to the wealth/power. Being anti-human is a requirement to become very powerful in our paradigm.
Just make a search on "iterative prisoner's dilemma" and you will see that as long as defection is not rewarded WAY higher than cooperation (it should be higher though - one time cheating is usually profitable) people tend to cooperate. Make the reward for defection really big and well....people will cheat.
After all wealth is tight with survival chances and longevity so there is a very good biological incentive to seek wealth. The system rewards bastards, so we tend to become bastards.
I hope I am clear enough.
Re:"iterative prisoner's dilemma" (Score:5, Insightful)
You are plenty clear enough for me, so I don't need to mirror your fine point.
System rewarding bastards applies to many levels of politics. I'll also add the economy of synergy effects - all the bastards are within 100 miles of each other, controlling 150+ million of us across the country. It's absolutely the Prisoner's Dilemma because we can't coordinate enough to vote a third party in.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone; Here's to Ben!
Frank walks over to Jeffrey and punches him in the face.
Frank grabs Jeffrey by the collar and repeats himself
Frank: Here's to Ben!
Jeffrey: Here's to Ben.
Frank: Be Polite!
Jeffrey: Here's to Ben!
Politeness in Action!
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That co-operation you speak of only works inside a community.
I don't know where the original poster keeps hearing this bias towards people believing that humans are naturally out to kill each other, but that's not the bias I see. Most people believe, evidence to the contrary, the myth of the "noble savage" & that kids will naturally be nice & innocent until culturally polluted by things like racism among other memes of how nice we are to each other.
The noble savage was always disconnected from the f
This explains why people torture (Score:2)
People are indeed nice, because they have learned via evolution (social or biological) that cooperation is more productive overall than fighting (just ask military people what is the reason for professional armies and how many soldiers shoot in the air during battles). However, the civilization system that we build promotes and rewards above else cheaters and sociopaths. And thus, the level of psychopathy is proportional to the wealth/power. Being anti-human is a requirement to become very powerful in our paradigm.
Just make a search on "iterative prisoner's dilemma" and you will see that as long as defection is not rewarded WAY higher than cooperation (it should be higher though - one time cheating is usually profitable) people tend to cooperate. Make the reward for defection really big and well....people will cheat.
After all wealth is tight with survival chances and longevity so there is a very good biological incentive to seek wealth. The system rewards bastards, so we tend to become bastards.
I hope I am clear enough.
Only people aren't nice when they are prison guards. Suddenly they become mean torturers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment [wikipedia.org]
http://www.prisonexp.org/ [prisonexp.org]
Most cheaters and sociopaths don't win (Score:2)
They usually end up in prison. Its only a tiny minority of them that end up doing well and thats probably despite rather than because of their mental state. If you think all CEOs are like that then I'm afraid you've been watching too much TV, most of them are just normal people who worked hard and - in part - got lucky or knew the right people.
Re: (Score:2)
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Well if according to those experiments everyone is a sociopath then the definition is meaningless and the whole argument moot.
Nicer than we think? (Score:2)
Feeling uneasy watching someone smash a baby for no reason only proves that most humans a not psychotic murderers. I don't know what the author thinks of humans but this is certainly below my expectations.
Really? - Cyclists (Score:2)
Why not post a Cyclists vs Cars story? Then watch all the really nice people have a reasonably adult discussion.
*fingers crossed* I totally promise such a discussion won't degenerate to people arguing the person with the biggest penis has right of way on THEIR road, and everyone else is collateral damage *fingers crossed*
A human is nice... alone. (Score:2)
But ironically, when groups collide, the same kin selection with the same "group over individual" genetically embued mentality make us insane, violent and savage - war, team supporters fig
Body (Score:2)
Yeah right. (Score:2)
The article is mendacious. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's smarter to be nice thats why.
If you ever were a kid and you went and punched another kid that kid is probably going to punch you back and harder than you punched them. If you pull a cats tail it's probably going to scratch or bite you. People learn to be nice because usually that is the only way to live a long life. Mean people don't get as much sympathy when something bad happens to them, and people who like violence often don't live very long unless they become professionals.
Are people nice? Yes but people are nice because they learn to be. In many cases people are nice because they have to be. Experiments have shown the exact opposite of this result. The Milgram experiment [wikipedia.org] proves that deep down people aren't nice when no one is looking or when some authority tells them to be mean. The Stanford prison torture experiment [prisonexp.org] proves the exact opposite as well in that people actually enjoy hurting others when they know they can get away with it.
The article is disinformation. It's looking at neuroscience (what people think and feel) vs what they actually do. People tend to do whatever is easiest, then they do what is smarter, and if being mean is easier and smarter than being nice then people can be mean.
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The Milgram experiment [wikipedia.org] proves that deep down people aren't nice when no one is looking or when some authority tells them to be mean. The Stanford prison torture experiment [prisonexp.org] proves the exact opposite as well in that people actually enjoy hurting others when they know they can get away with it.
These two experiments are cited a lot, but the science level is poor. They don't prove anything. There are many interpretations of what happened. Neither were a double-blind experiment, and as far as I can tell, there was no control group, or any attempt to account for various factors. This shouldn't be surprising since the field IS sociology, which is notorious for bad experiments. In one attempt at reproduction of the Milgram experiment, the researchers informed the participants of what was happening, and
Canoes intead of trolleys (Score:5, Interesting)
I have always found the trolley model to be absurd. If we were being realistic, then there would be other solutions. The same dilemma was re-written for river tribesmen, and I much prefer this version. As far as I can remember, it goes like this...
You fish on the great river. There are five people in your boat: four people who row, and a fat guy who sits in the back and baits the hooks. Your grandfather has stories of a great and fierce crocodile that lives in the river, and kills entire boat crews, but your generation have never seen it...
(1)
The crocodile appears and comes for the boat. He swims much faster than you can row, but you start to row anyway. The fat guy was standing up at the back, and he falls in. Suddenly the boat is going faster: you might get to shore, but then the fat guy is lost. Do you turn around and try to pick him up? Most people would keep going, but feel that they ought to turn back.
(2)
The crocodile appears and comes for the boat. He swims much faster than you can row, but you start to row anyway. The fat guy was standing up at the back, but does not fall in. You know if he falls in, the boat will go faster, and he may distract the crocodile too. Do you push him in? Most people would not push, but would think that the four for one exchange is reasonable.
(3)
You are the fat guy. The crocodile appears and comes for the boat. If you jump off the boat, the others might make it to shore. Most people would think that the four for one exchange is reasonable: they hope they would be noble enough to jump, but suspect the wouldn't actually do it.
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Come on, be creative:
4)
Throw the fish and bait in the river to distract the crocodile.
5)
Wait until the crocodile gets close to the boat, and bash it on the head with an oar.
6)
Wait until the crocodile gets close to the boat, and push the fat guy onto it, killing the crocodile.
Humans are Nice - I like them best with BBQ sauce (Score:2)
But I don't eat the brains, that'd be wrong.
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CJD is a bitch.
fortunately we can 'overcome' this 'obstacle' (Score:2)
by using extensive training and de-sensitization techniques, such as introducing young children to the concept of simulated rape and murder for entertainment, we can train a generation of children who will have no problem flying a remotely piloted vehicle and killing random strangers about whom they know nothing other than that the computer indicates the person is a 'target'.
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by 'simulated rape and murder' i am referring to GTA 3, and by 'remotely piloted vehicle' im talking about what the US is doing in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and several other countries right now
Nothing that hasn't been done with boot camp, special forces training, and faceless weapons (high altitude bombing, long range artillery) for decades.
It amazes me that we have to keep rediscovering (Score:5, Insightful)
Study after study. Paper after paper. Knowledge upon knowledge. We keep learning the same things about ourselves over and over and over again. Corruption is a problem of opportunity more than of character. We observe that people who believe they are "on top" are more likely to cheat and lie. We observe that when we know who we are dealing with and they know us, we are less likely to do 'bad things.'
It's all part of our human nature. We see it in everything we do. When we get into "road rage" we don't identify the people, we identify the car and call 'it' an asshole and handle it however we feel we need to. When we, people, deal with "non-people" things, we are assholes.
We have built-in empathy for others. But when we are able to see people as non-people, we can do truly terrible things to them.
With all that said, there are STILL individuals capable of overcoming this problem. These rare people can look upon the need and suffering of others and not feel a pang of guilt or a desire to help. We call them sociopaths, but we also call them leaders, bosses and idols.
cowardice (at best calculated odds) (Score:2)
Within their own social group, maybe they're not overtly violent, but as soon as the brown monkeys sufficiently outnumber the green monkeys, the green monkeys are toast.
The whole of human history shows that whenever there's an "out" group (minority religion, skin color, language, intoxicant preference, ...) or weaker group (women, or numerically/technologically inferior tribe), they will be persistently damaged by the "in", or stronger group.
"Nice" people don't wage crusades, jihads, genocides, chattel or d
Finally, "news for nerds"! (Score:2)
People are more complex than a simple markov chain can model.
What is the next newsflash for nerds?
"Randomly applying theory x yields no new information!"
"Ignoring everything that doesn't agree with your viewpoint doesn't make your argument stronger."
"Sometimes you are wrong."
"Potato chips are bad for you."
I just mentioned it the other day in slashdot. (Score:3)
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Well, nice guys that retaliate, if you're going by the Dawkins example, hehe. I.E - I'll play nice, and I'll even forgive the first slight, but if you keep screwing me over, you're getting screwed right back. Technically, it's not "better", but leads to evolutionary equilibrium. Unfortunately, total evil also leads to evolutionary equilibrium as he pointed out.
It's not good versus evil... but "mostly good" versus evil.
Bad news for religious types (Score:2)
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No, many religious types believe that all people are evil types itching to go on crime sprees. You may have heard it referred to as "original sin".
The fundamental purpose of religion is to keep people nice enough that we don't exterminate ourselves. (Unfortunately, it also turns out to be a great way to manipulate large groups for selfish purposes). If you read the Old Testament laws (mostly in Leviticus, re-explained in Deuteronomy) you might notice a pattern. They're all aimed at preserving a stable so
Re: (Score:3)
Which is fine and thanks for the quotation. However, the main point was that I am always being told by Christians that morality comes from God and as a horrible agnostic, I have no moral compass.
mmmm, yes (Score:2)
"evidence for the link between the body and moral decision-making processes.""
Yes, the body as a strong influence on my morals, but the personality too.
Pinker's book (Score:4, Informative)
--
.nosig
Not entirely new (Score:3)
I read about this theory [iraxi.us] years ago, which I've always found to be particularly interesting.
tl;dr: Human beings are naturally nonviolent. 6-7,000 years ago, desertification in northern Africa caused the humans there to become desperate for food and resources, and thus violent in order to survive. These cultures in turn spread out over the entire world (obviously able to out-compete peaceful peoples). And now various cultural practices have continued teaching violent behavior to people generation after generation when there's no longer any such natural "need" for such violence.
The evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
*I use the term "natural duel" in a technical sense that excludes the artifices we have known as "duels" in civilization: Two individuals (males) in an open natural setting -- not in an arena or ring -- using everything at their disposal to hunt down and kill their rival. In the human case this includes the use of tools/weapons of their own making as well as strategy and improvisation.
That's all well and good... (Score:3)
... but when you throw in a little greed and organizational hierarchy and chase it down with some tribalism and groupthink, we're still more likely to screw each other in the name of competition than cooperate in the name of the Common Good.
Re:First post (Score:4, Interesting)
Do we count honesty as nice? A little experiment (in the form of an ad for a bank that I do not use, am not employed by or own shares of).
Would you give back the $5 to this asshole?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgiWkVZGN7g [youtube.com]
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Honesty tests conducted to determine most honest city/country. Just an excuse for me to brag about my home country of Norway, heh
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Do we count honesty as nice?
Quite the contrary: telling someone a truth they don't want to hear is one of the fastest ways to be labeled an dick, in my experience.
I'll take being an honest asshole over a lying one any day of the week.
Re:First post (Score:4, Informative)
I'll just leave this here..
http://chzgifs.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/funny-gifs-sorry-spiderman.gif [wordpress.com]
I'm an exception to the rule (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm an exception to the rule (Score:5, Funny)
We're gonna love and tolerate the shit outta you!
Re:I know (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was young I was the nicest guy I knew
I thought I was the chosen one
But time went by and I found out a thing or two
My shine wore off as time wore on
I thought that I was living out the perfect life
But in the lonely hours when the truth begins to bite
I thought about the times when I turned my back & stalled
I ain't no nice guy after all --Lemmy Kilminster
Lemmy said it better than I could.
Time and survival have turned me from a nice kid to a cynical punk to a vicious hoodlum to a cracked middle aged guy trying to find that nice kid again.
I think whoever did this research didn't go to the wrong side of town or find subjects outside their safe comfort zone. Like the dick that I am, I'm gonna have'ta call bad science on this one.
Like they say, "you can't go home again".... I ain't no nice guy after all.
Re:I know (Score:4, Insightful)
Time and survival have turned me from a nice kid to a cynical punk
RTF[Summary]: They're talking "nature". You're talking "nurture". Like maybe one's crappy church or crappy parents or crappy poverty makes one violent.
Re:I know (Score:4, Funny)
Have a nice day :)
Stop tellin' me what to do! You ain't the boss of me!
Re:I know (Score:5, Insightful)
If we have a fundamental aversion to violence, then why are we entertained by it?
Personally I think it's the lack of consequences that entertainment-based violence offers. That our built-in aversion to violence is a more wide-ranging built-in aversion to getting into situations that would end badly for us. A Risk/Reward system built in to our biology.
Also, *Doffs hat* Have a nice day.
Re:I know (Score:5, Insightful)
>If we have a fundamental aversion to violence, then why are we entertained by it?
So it never occurred to you that humans have the capacity to tell fantasy and reality appart and can in fantasy enjoy the very things that we are averse to in reality without any particular causal link or need for the one to bleed into the other ?
Not to do deny that such bleeding over never happens, only that there is no proof nor even any GOOD reasons to believe it's inevitable or that the process is not entirely within the conscious control of the person involved.
We're entertained by fictional violence because they appeal to our flght-or-flight adrenal gland responses without triggering any of the emotions that real violence links to - disgust, fear etc.
This kind of study is actually quite in line with what we can observe all the time - people who are under the influence of drugs like alcohol are far more likely to act violently. That makes sense as natural aversions are reduced by such drugs (the same reason they have a notable reductive effect on sexual inhibitions)
It's a tad old, but (Score:2, Insightful)
You seem to ignore the fact that large numbers of people enjoy actual violence, injury and death. Most notable would have been the gladiators and others that were killed off in large numbers in front of very large crowds almost every day. More recently we just love the actual crashing and hurting involved in sports (American Football, Football, Rugby, Boxing etc). Not so much to the death now-a-days, but we do love our actual violence even though it's in the organised sports realm.
That and we seem to have c
Re:It's a tad old, but (Score:5, Interesting)
However, pre Korean war only 15 to 20% of of soldiers in close qurarters fired their weapons. http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hope_on_the_battlefield/ [berkeley.edu]
Those who are violent enough to kill are a pretty small number, percentage wise. And nobody would blame a solder for shooting at a soldier that was firing at him.
Being able to deliberately kill a fellow human being is a somewhat rare ability.
Re:I know (Score:5, Interesting)
There's probably a near infinite number of basic differences between accurately depicting violence and showing it the way most entertainment does. For just a few examples, take films such as Con Air or the Die Hard series. Are people really attracted to the message of violence itself, or do they like it that the violence seems to fall hardest on the worst villians, as though the violence became proof that there was some sort of God, if only a God of Wrath that would steer a falling villiain into landing in an improvised electric chair? Most people are not attracted to entertainment where violence is shown as part of the random seeming outcomes of the real world. Showing that the Uber-Eeeevil guy still has people who miss him once he's gone - that what one person considers a terrorist, another considers a freedom fighter - that bullets don't always stop in the primary target - these things tend to hurt entertainment sales.
In a way, you could argue that the (fictive, entertainment depiction of) violence is itself never the real problem, and worrying about the effect of it on even children is worrying about the wrong aspect of the TV shows and films in question. Even if we grant the premise that entertainment violence does have bad effects on some people, maybe it's the terrible inaccuracy of films that show people shooting guns out of "perp's" hands with high powered sniper rifles that would take said perp's whole arm off at the shoulder that cause the psychological damage. Maybe showing the randomness of a realistic firefight, showing the consequences with some respect for realism, is what's needed to keep from glamorizing the violence itself. Maybe it's showing guns as surgically precise tools and bullets as steered by the god of the tribe of good guys to achieve instant karma. Maybe it's showing people falling down, but not showing funerals full of grieving families, or people spending the rest of their lives in wheelchairs, or even some poor janitor having to mop up the mess. Maybe it's the claim that the strong and decent are quick to resort to violence rather than reluctant at best.
Re:I know (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not unreality that makes violence attractive. If it were, a real fight wouldn't draw a crowd.
The difference is a fight between two OTHER people doesn't threaten you.
People are averse to violence that could directly involve themselves and probably only to that threat.
Re:I know (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never really thought about it this way, but it seems to make a rudimentary sense that we'd develop a desire to watch a train wreck (or fist fight, or Megatron vs Optimus) in order to see who survives, and then mimic their actions if we find ourselves in our own train wreck later on. Surely the ridiculousness of a Hollywood fight scene won't help much in this regard, but, prior to TV? Say, Roman gladiator times? Maybe.
Violence is boring. (Score:3, Insightful)
If we have a fundamental aversion to violence, then why are we entertained by it?
I don't think it's the violence, per se. The violence in movies and video games are more wish fulfillment - getting the bad guy and giving him what he deserves.
Grand Theft Auto, OTOH, .....fantasy - a "what if I went completely ape shit sociopath" type of fantasy.
Then it gets boring.
And I find as I get older, the violence get more and more boring. I really don't like action movies. When the fight scenes come, I fidget until they're over - Jackie Chan may be the exception because he's dancing more than
Re:I know (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I think it's the lack of consequences that entertainment-based violence offers.
I'm going to have to disagree with you there: Historically, there were gladiator games and Mayan ball court games with very real risks to the players. Even the modern somewhat-less-violent versions (full-contact sports like football, UFC, boxing, WWE) has significant consequences to the participants in the form of concussions, broken limbs, problems related to steroid use, and shorter life spans. And then there's the people who seem to treat real warfare casually and as entertainment (who are never the people actually fighting it).
Humans do seem to accept violence that risks other people's lives as entertainment.
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Re:I know (Score:4, Insightful)
You would be correct if there were an ideology that advocated not working and living off of welfare. The act of receiving welfare only indicates that you don't have a job for some reason.
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Really? Please explain the hidden Amazonian tribes that wipe themselves out without external intervention. Violence is not just conditioning, there's an element inherent in the human make-up. It's also not surprising. Chimpanzees and primates can be murderous by their very natures (chimps, especially, will routinely murder their own).
People who believe that humans are "acclimatised" into violence are no different to those who think we should eat only vegetables. There's a conscious effort you can make
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Yeah, funny how people forget that we are social animals. Being social doesn't mean we're always nice and not selfish pricks, but it does mean there is a tendency just as real as selfishness to want to strengthen social bonds, and see to the health of the group.