Faith in humanity.

[bluestarultor]

Okay, so I know I've sounded pretty cold and surly as of late with my ultra-realism/pessimism in terms of people. It's not that I don't want to have faith in humanity. Like, Obama getting elected gave me a huge boost in that, especially when I saw who he was hanging with and why and his first hundred days. That wore off eventually, of course, after the Republican side of things started flapping their yaps and I remembered there are still people who listen to them.

But here's a better case in point. Everyone's been talking about BlazBlue, and it seems well-received. Which is good, people agreeing and all, sharing tips, helping each other out. Then I go do some research and find this. If you like, you can examine the offending site, but the point is that the Guilty Gear people essentially quashed a BlazBlue site and will go so far as to delete posts referring to it and infract the posters to keep their fucking monopoly on Aksys fighters. It's a game, they're stuck on previous titles, and they're too effing uppity to let anyone try to make more out of the new one than them.

This is the kind of thing that just plain pisses me off and drags me back down when I see a glimmer of hope for the non-NPF members of the world. Something so simple as trying to expand a game, an action benefitting many, gets effectively killed by monopolistic pricks. If people can't even be half decent about games, well, hopefully, you can guess my train of logic, because I'm still in recoil from the annoyance and can't express the rest of it in coherent words. I'm actually posting this against my better judgement.



At any rate, for those of you who have better faith in humanity, post it here, or those who have outright given up, if there are any. I dunno if this belongs in Discussion or if it's just going to turn out as a place to rant. I'm gonna see about finding one of those feel-good stories the news is running less and less these days and check back in a bit once I've stopped being annoyed at people in general.

[Magus]

Well, I would think the massive incidence of genocide going on in this world combined with religious extremism/terrorism, corporate greed, and discrimination would be more cause for alarm than forum shenanigans, but there is something to say for the petty cruelty/unfairness exhibited by the majority of humans on a daily basis as well as the atrocities committed by the minority outlined above, so I do think it okay to point it out. I mean, there was another thread where someone mentioned people cutting in line at the grocery store and so forth. I mean, that's like petty anarchy on a small scale, and the same sort of selfishness gets magnified on a global scale with the horrible deeds of the powerful.

I mean, of course there are some nice people, but most people are sort of mean and uncaring at best, cruel and sadistic at worst. I'd say humanity as a whole isn't really worth putting much faith in. Rather, individuals that can be held up as good examples would be more worthy of faith (if we can avoid doing horrible things in the name of cult of personality in the mean time, of course.)

[Azisien]

Depends what we mean in faith in humanity?

Usually the term comes up as in humanity is a morally good species, which is absolutely not the case and I would have no faith. I believe it was Men in Black which put it well, and I will paraphrase, "The individual is good, but people, PEOPLE are chaotic, montrous."

And it's true. I'd consider myself to be a rather morally good person, but not perfect. Same goes for several good people I know. But depending on what kind of morals you're striving far, once I extend my view beyond about ten people, the world begins degrading. It degrades until we reach a global scale, and I have no choice but to label humanity as, on the whole, an utter monstrosity worthy of extinction.

But then, I am human, so I guess we're on the same team. Just sayin', there's a reason why whenever aliens show up in movies they start the exterminating. Or robots. Both of these classes are probably good guys realizing quickly what we are.

Ultimately, we're just animals. We need to eat, sleep, fuck. And our behaviour proves it. Despite our apparent extreme intelligence over all other animals on the planet, we are trapped in one of animal behaviour's often cited scenarios, the prisoner's dilemma (or at least the philosophy of it). Yes, it would make perfect sense and be incredibly beneficial to work together. And we do, on small, medium scales. Often reluctantly, or due to routine. And dear god, forbid that we meet someone of a different race or culture, they're different and obviously won't fit in. Forget working together to solve the various "crises" that plague the planet, lets just go it on our own, with small to medium-scale interests satisfied. When the most influential country in the world is the one capable of murdering us all in one fell swoop, how's that look for humanity?

Yes, apparently we are all rational beings, but I've yet to see adequate proof that translates onto the humanity scale. As a species, we're chaotic, petty, overtly competitive, aggressive. A bunch of naked apes pretending we're all that. Yes, look at us, we made fires, we found things to wipe our asses with, we wrangled some walls and buildings. We also raped and murdered people because they were slightly different. We charge blindly into the environment, destroying what we want and claiming it for petty short term self-interests, with an IOU labelled "will fix later" in a few lucky spots. What?! You worship a vaguely different idol than me?! Some phenotypic trait is slightly different?! I guess I should murder you, but just to be safe, I should probably murder your entire family too. On second thought I'm going to invade your country for some food, or land, or gold, or oil. My examples may be large scale still, but there are very small, seemingly insignificant activites that happen everyday that drag humanity back down to our roots. A shoplift here, a "nobody will miss this" there, a "this won't hurt anybody" littering of some piece of trash. Oh, one more hummer or SUV won't hurt. No, but half a billion litterbugs or hummers will.

But hey, we try! Yes, look at our true cooperative efforts. The United Nations! Is there logo an example for powerless or useless in the dictionary?

What do I see? Petty genetic squabbles on an animalistic level, mostly. Yeah, we fluff up a few sections here or there with some philosophy, and some love, and some grilled cheese sandwiches.

So where did I begin? Faith in humanity? Well, I guess as of this writing I've decided to portray an argument with very little. In fact, I'd say there's mostly none overall. Why? Let's just say my argument steps into religion a little bit, and I know everyone here is pretty smart so they can fill in a few blanks.

Holy fuck an unclaimed oil source but there's a bunch of polar bears in the way. All cruise missiles fire, fox two fox two!

[CelesJessa]

I still have faith in humanity. I think there's just as many good people as there are bad people, it's just the bad people who demand the most attention. It's like the times when you show someone some project that you're really proud of, and 8 out of 10 people are like "Wow, that looks really great, good job", but for some reason you will always remember and dwell on those 2 people who said "Psh, you're stupid and you suck." It's not that the majority of people are bad, it's just we're too focused on the bad things.

It's just kind of like this pie chart, just applied to a general scale:

[MSperoni]

That graph of yours is funny and true

One thing I was told by a friend is that the only thing more pointless than an internet troll is actually listening to what they say.

I wouldn't lose faith in humanity due to a spat amongst gamers who have too much time on their hands and an inflated sense of self-worth. If BlazBlue is really good it'll get good reviews and will thrive regardless, and then maybe one of these days the shoe will be on the other foot

[krogothwolf]

Faith in humanity but not faith in crowds. I have no real understand of why mob mentality exists still considering all we learn in school and such. You'd think more people would stop and think before being swept up into a mob and causing chaos but meh, the human psyche is far beyond my knowledge. I have tons of faith in humanity as it stems form my attitude. I am someone who will do good things for people and not expect anything in return and will return a favor if someone does a good thing for me. I have faith because quite frankly, I'm an ass a bunch of times, yet I will go out of my way to do things for people because it's the right thing to do. If an ass can do good things then the humanity shouldn't be that badly off.

As for the idiots of that Guilty Gear community, those people you just have to ignore and let them live in their own little world. I personally don't understand fanboyism following something so blindly and not seeing merits in anything else is such a weird thing to do.

[Loyal]

Originally Posted by Azisien

Usually the term comes up as in humanity is a morally good species, which is absolutely not the case and I would have no faith. I believe it was Men in Black which put it well, and I will paraphrase, "The individual is good, but people, PEOPLE are chaotic, montrous."

That isn't what Kay said at all. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it!"

That said, I don't have faith in humanity. For that matter I also don't have a pessimistic outlook on it. The actions and opinions of a few stupid individuals aren't enough to make me think the rest of the world needs a good depopulation bomb. These people that make us lose our so-called 'faith' are just a very "vocal" minority and I for one refuse to give them any more regonition than a silent call of "idiot," before moving on.

[Nique]

That isn't what Kay said at all. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it!"

It sort of carries the same idea though.

So, yeah, who knows? I try to avoid being too judgmental of people when it comes to your every-day offences becuase everyone is entitled to have a bad day sometimes, and we're far more observant of other people's flaws than our own. All of us have probably cut in line or accidentally offended someone without having any idea that we were totally utterly in the wrong.

Everyone complains about other drivers right? But those drivers are doing the same thing. Who's right? I can't see how my driving looks to everyone else. I assume everyone else is in the same boat so to speak, so why not cut them some slack?

But I can only tolerate things up to a point. Of course truly horrible crimes make me want to just shut down if I think about them too much, and then there's those utterly inexcusable parts of some people's behavior - yelling at customer service people, intentionally pissing people off on the road, bragging to the point of self-worship. Sometimes I cringe at the very thought of humanity.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Loyal

That isn't what Kay said at all. "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it!"

The similarities are astounding! And I specifically mentioned paraphrasing because I knew I wouldn't remember the exact quote, nor was I going to look it up. The meaning stands strong, addled here and there by a decade of pessimism.

[Magus]

If they made Men in Black today that's probably what he would've said, along with an extra comment about "the aliens being the easiest thing to police on this horrid rock we...no, live is too strong a word. EXIST on. Where's my Zoloft?!"