Human nature is horribly flawed. Is there anything we can do right now to fix it?

[Snsl153]

There's not all that much difference between them

Especially when it comes to the perpetration, and acceptance of, violence. I mean, why? Why do so many find suffering entertaining? And war. I don't get it. Nationalism. Believing what satisfies the ego, rather than what is actually true. Short-sightedness, greed and duplicity. The propensity to gossip and back-stab. Susceptibility to scams, the selfish (in my view anyway) desire for eternal life, or an afterlife. I could go on.
I'm not sure what category this should go under, so I'll put it under 'Other'. The topic covers most of the categories here on GAG, including 'Girl's Behaviour', 'Guy's Behaviour' and 'Society and Politics' (which I'm not following anymore). Maybe we should have a 'Psychology' section.

Updates

1 y

When I first asked this question I had no idea so many people would come forward to make excuses for behaviour that is, as far as I can see, thoroughly unacceptable and inexcusable. Excuses like, "Oh, but we can't help it because we're programmed this way, it's in our nature, and we can't rise above nature". Seriously?
I guess some people have never heard of our capacity to make choices in life, to decide to do what is right, rather than what is expedient or seemingly utilitarian.

[vald9inches]

Is it really human nature though? or were we made to believe it is for the benefit of a few? All those things that are told is part of human nature is no more a part of us then the deranged and insane serial killers. Are they human? Yes they are and they do exist in our society but are rare. Its only when serial killers have become our leaders and in control of our world do we see all these horrible acts. Its a lot easier enslave people when you make the slaves believe that its normal and part of human nature to enslave others...

[vald9inches]

Thanks for the mho beautiful! ❤️

[DJB72]

To live like there's no God makes fools of humans. Western society has increasingly tried to eliminate any reference to God from morality. But unless you have a base standard there's essentially only arbitrary rules so why follow them?

[Sonorous]

I always like to say that I don't think the goal of life is to get along. Otherwise we wouldn't be literally digestible to eachother. 🤣💀 But that since the goal of life is survival & reproduction. We'd only be an objectively incompatible piece of life if we couldn't meet those standards.

[CaptainOverthink]

The best we can do is temporary fixes for now. Which is to be vigilant of ourselves first and work on self-improvment. Then enlighten others to do the same in a non-judgemental way. Both of these things are hard and expect we'll be doing it all our lives.
Then there's another much harder and harsher part that has to do with choosing who to have children with. So this goes out to women more than men because they're the gatekeepers. But ofc men should also be choosy. And anyone with bad genes (nature not nurture) could choose to not have kids. Statistically 30% of men never reproduce anyway, out of which many probably should with this agenda in mind while many aggressive or deceptive men do (which is also a big part of why they do).

Other solutions are very unethical and rather than focus on ourselves you focus on enforcing others..
Like say.. do what Hitler did but target those who seem like the worst and basically weed out those who seem to have undesiered traits (reducing those traits in the gene-pool) and then keep at it as time goes. But you'd have to be able to accurately decide what's nature and what's nurture.
But it's still very much ingrained in all of us because it's been useful for our survival in non-civilized societies (which dominates our history waaay more them democracy does).

Either way you go (of the above), since all these traits are so ingrained, expect population to go way down before it goes up again.

Another is we do it through technology. With gene-editing on EVERY unborn child. This is probably the fastest way as the other methods would take millenia and millenia, this may only take a few generations if everyone did it (how do you get everyone to do it?).
Not to mention, the trial and error phase of this technology we don't know the unintended consequences of it.


But I think realisticly we just need to choose the right partners and work on ourselves. And then have a working political system that more good than bad and strives to get better, slowly.

Why slowly? Because we don't know the unintended consequences of the decisions we take and unraveling a system that's been more good than bad so far (compared to other systems in the world) is very reckless as the outcome is more unknown than known.
Honestly, even the best ideas we have as humans are very much clouded by our own humanity. We are so blind and naive to think it would be easy to create utopia.

Peace, out.

[LilyoftheLake]

Something I learned in philosophy class, if nothing else, was from Socrates. But I'll get to that.

We played this game, I'm unsure of what it's called, but it was very interesting. We divided into teams and were each given two signs, an axe and a log. If every team held up a log, we all got points. If any team chose to throw up an axe, they would get all the points and all the logs would get none. If more than one team chose the axe, they would split the points and the logs would LOSE some points, and if all teams chose axe, EVERY team lost points.

We played in rounds. Every time, we would just decide in our teams which sign to hold up and talk to the other teams, trying to convince everyone to throw logs (because then if we threw axe...)

It was very interesting. It was on the second round, after throwing logs in the first round, that I realized what we needed to do. Throw logs EVERY time. I managed to convince my team, but not the other teams, so we threw logs every time and watched our points plummet.

By the end, the teacher took score - but not in the way we expected. He tallied up the TOTAL POINTS at the end of each round. Sure enough, rounds with all logs boosted our collective points, rounds with an axe came out neutral, and every other round brought DOWN the total welfare of the points.

[LilyoftheLake]

The moral of the story? Throw logs, every time. Even if you know someone else is going to throw an axe, so why shouldn't you, the way to become happy is to feel content with the knowledge that YOU, at least, threw logs.

[vald9inches]

Human society only exists because of our cooperation if we are to believe what we are told thay human beings are violent greedy selfish creatures society would never have existed to begin with. Its only when we have psychotic leaders that lack any humanity like many CEOs do we have problems in the world

[Snsl153]

@vald9inches Something we agree on. People like to make excuses for bad behaviour, as though it's something they can't do anything about, but that's just rubbish! Each and every one of us can decide for ourselves to live a better, more decent and moral life. It really isn't all that hard to do.

[vald9inches]

Yup! 💯 We need to create a society that encourages good behavior instead of our current profit and greed motivated society

[Loth2770]

Human nature consists of the biological tendencies of humanity. It was forged over tens of thousands of years through process of natural selection. It inclines people towards violence because that trait has produced survival—those less inclined to violence were outcompeted by those more willing to kill. It is the same for other traits.

This is an ongoing process, and changes in technology and civilization push natural selection in certain directions, which will shape human nature in the coming centuries and millennia.

As for what we can do now? We adapt. We manipulate, abuse, and use or biological traits to achieve the ends we desire. People are violent? Find out what angers them and address that. People are selfish? Manipulate that selfishness to make the group richer (this is what capitalism does). People want an afterlife? Promise them one if they do things that benefit others (this is what religion does).

Adapt and overcome. You can’t control what human nature is, but you can control how it manifests.

[normalice]

No. But it will fix itself over time. I think of it as the social mind becoming it's own species - a collective consciousness, of sorts. Civilization (democracy) is of course the "immortal adult" that social mind strives to become but has all these various toxic elements that must die off first. Not killed, though - it must build up defenses naturally and sustainably.

For example scam artists are the natural parasites of civilization. To become immune to them we can't just kill them all as that will only benefit us for 100 years or so and then new scam artists will be born and flourish in an environment where no one sees them coming.

To become immune, then, we must educate each generation about scammers anew in perpetuity. Some precautions like preventing children from being able to sign legal documents might be wise, but seems more like a crutch than a real solution. It must become part of civilization to make everyone aware of scammers, leaving none behind, in order to fully eradicate scammers from civilization. But of course at each stage scammers will just get a little more clever to worm around the new cautions civilization teaches itself or target those who aren't under the protection of education. This will go on until education is freely availible to all and is robust enough that it predicts the next move of scammers. Then immunity to scammers is achieved.

I think this sort of thing is inevitable for all of our flaws, assuming we don't all suffocate from extreme heat first, but may take thousands of years. It sucks being a cog in that machine with no way to speed it up so we can live in that world, but I've found that dwelling too much on it only prevents me from enjoying what this world has to offer.

[Guy13]

There’s no fix. Can you not survey simple history and see the common and repeating patterns? It is man and his inability to do good and exemplify righteousness, mercy, or good. It’s self-evident if you are honest. -The only conclusion is Biblical and indeed man, once perfectly created in the image of God, chose not God and that choosing has put man at odds with a Holy and Righteous God.
-What explanation do you have besides man is fallen and lost in his fleshy depravity. It’s all over the world. It’s all over the web. And, it’s all over us, individually. There is no avoiding this reality.
-Man can not enlighten himself to a higher place or state. Man can not educate or achieve on his own what he does not possess either a knowledge or means of.
-We know not Good…we are created and even being the highest functioning created thing we are less and incomplete. Even if one is Imperfectly Perfect In Christ Jesus, we are simultaneously fleshy and fallen. Man is fruitless when left up to his own doing.
-Eternality is the Hope whereas “fixing oneself who is already fallen and knows not of Good and Holy” is Selfishness. It’s the pinnacle of Selfishness and the best real-time exampling of the wickedness imbedded within the human heart itself.
-Man did not Self-create nor can man Self-fix outside the work of the Spirit of God received In and Through Christ Jesus.

[Guy13]

Grace:receiving what is undeserved. Great Riches At Christ’sExpense.
Mercy: not getting what one does deserve which is the vengeful and immediate wrath of God upon those who are in defiance of Him.- This would be each of us deserving Death but with possibility to receive Grace. A Saving Grace…

[Ευδεμονια]

Humanity has always been greedy, egoist, opportunist, violent and lazy, there’s no time in human history when those characteristics doesn’t show. Obviously it seems nowadays is worse than older times since through social media the expression of negative traits is facilitated.
I think personally it’s nearly impossible to forge and correct human nature, there’s people who tried to do so with disastrous results.
Think about communist movement, that tried to correct human greediness and egoism, they killed million people and didn’t succeeded.
Think about the Church, they wanted to create an humanity with high moral values completely devoted to God and respectful of the others: during Middle age and Renaissance they burnt people alive, tortured and killed a lot of people.
Think about Nazism, whose basic intention was to purify human race through the elimination of all impurities, they ended up exterminating Jews (and a lot of other people) in the name of racial purity.


You see, humanity has the aspiration of purity, but it always involves the elimination of impurity through mass killing and violences. Aren’t those means an expression of human impurity?


I think honestly the only thing we can do is to work on ourselves, giving the others what you want them to give you: respect, politeness, education, trust, helpfulness and responsibility. If you give them that, the others will start giving you more of these things. This is the only way to create a virtuous circle at least in our living context.
No man can change all humanity, only megalomaniacs think they could.

[vald9inches]

Are you any of those negative characteristics that you listed? are you greedy, egoist, opportunist, violent?

[Ευδεμονια]

More or less every human is in its way greedy, opportunist, violent and egoist. I can say sure I’m not a violent person but I have sure some of the other negative traits. Everyone has at least one, Mahatma Gandhi too. Maybe only Jesus didn’t but I’m not too sure.

[vald9inches]

Ok so you are not a violent person but are you greedy? Or egoist or opportunist? What other negative traits do you have? I realize no one is perfect but please share with me

[Ευδεμονια]

Why this much interest towards my faults? I think I can be opportunist, sometimes I wait for others to make a move so I can advantage myself. Also my egoism and goes up when I’m angry, especially when I drive 😂 I don’t define myself greedy but I don’t give away my money and my things to person I don’t know, so I don’t do charity because I basically think it’s a waste.
I recognise I have a blackmailing attitude with some persons that care about me, I’m trying to correct my behaviour but often it’s easy to blackmail to discharge the blame to others.
Last one, I’m basically lazy, I live between periods when I do 1000 things at the same moment and other moments I don’t want to lift a toe. Usually I use some lazy trick at home to avoid doing too many houseworks.

Have I satisfied your curiosity? 😂 I feel like I’m at psychologist 😂

[vald9inches]

@Ευδεμονια you have lol but it seems like you consider yourself generally as a good person and you recognize your own faults and would try to better yourself am i correct to assume that?

[Ευδεμονια]

I consider myself as average, everyone has strengths and weaknesses, I’ve mine as everyone else. I don’t consider myself an evil person, but I’m not a saint. I recognise some of my faults so I try to improve, some others I accept as I am.

[TheSpaceGnome]

I don't agree that it's flawed, I think its beautiful.

I think people dramatize it to unrealistic preportions through media, and they often critisize it, or just have absurd opinions about human nature, or just the silly opinion that nature itself is bad and we need to abandon our natural instincts and urges, despite them being wonderful things (also no, we can't rise above nature, we are part of nature).

One of the biggest tropes is to demonize scientific progress.

Another is to demonize life extention, or cloning extinct things.

Another is to demonize money, despite bartering being just the worst.

Yet another is to make it seem like humans are the worst regarding environmentalism, despite us being literally the ONLY species who even gives a shit about environmental preservation, and extinction being the rule rather than the exception.

And another is to call people out on self interests, as if matyrdom is a good thing, and self preservation is bad, which is absurd.

Misanthropy is a sign of being uneducated.

[hafinjun]

You said so many enjoy the suffering you must be talking about my doctor and the DEA I have knees would absolutely no cartilage in them they've been that way for almost 20 years now and thanks to the DEA being part of my healthcare team now I can't get a decent pain pill I had to quit working I understand I understand the dangerous in the you can become addicted to him because I've been addicted to him took me 3 weeks of hell to get off of them but I'm sorry after 20 years of pain but not gotten any better it keeps getting worse it's getting old I have diabetic ulcers on my legs that won't go away no matter what my blood sugar is and until I get rid of them they won't do surgery.
Personally I think it's real crime that draw our technology and all our research the strongest painkiller we have today is the first one we developed over 100 years ago I was on pain management for the Percocet would you give me where it really didn't do it anymore I'm going to talk to my doctor about it and he prescribed it we ak supply of time release morphine I went and got it there pretty little purple pills I supposed to take one in the morning and one every 12 hours basically they work like a charm I had no pain I wasn't high they're great so I called the doctor said yep this is what we want you wrote me a month prescription for it and I went and got it filled the lady was native pharmacy they were different color and when I took one I was waiting for the usual relief of pain it didn't come so I took another one give another hour I'm heading nothing had happened so I called the pharmacist for chance made a mistake explaining the color difference and she said oh you're one of those apparently one in 100,000 people generic morphine doesn't work for him and that's what the gray pills were was a generic morphine

[DaveJord]

Well this a debate over nature vs nurture. Are humans inherently flawed, or are we nurtured into flawed behavior patterns. History has proven to us that humans are inherently flawed, but what isn't? Nothing is 100% perfect... so why do we have this perspective that we should not be flawed when we know that we are?

I tend to believe in the modern world that we try too hard to pervert social mechanism to influence or manipulate people's behavior to what some minority or majority of people would deem to be proper moral values and beliefs, even if it runs contrary to our very human nature. For example, your born with a penis... therefore you are a man. This is how humans have dealt with this question and answer for millennia and there has been no doubt or controversy over the fact that being born with a penis makes you a man. So what's all the confusion about today? Well some small segment of the population has made it it's propose to subject the vast majority of people to having to confront their agenda over it against their will. Like I honestly don't give a shit if you want to be gay or trans or whatever... but I get pissed over the fact that I got to see it every were I go. It on my TV, its in stores, social media and I can't escape seeing it and I honestly believe its being used to socially engineer our children and young people... so now we have conflict were there was no conflict. Was it in my nature to resent LGBTQ... yes probably but I never would hated them as much as I am beginning to now... so I was nurtured into developing an anti- position when I never would of other wise. So who is flawed here? Me, society or them? The answer none of it is perfect so we all are flawed.

This what is at the root of most conflicts within society today... people thinking the world should be a particular way and then trying to manipulate social norms and traditions to make it so... conflict arises when they could of just left it alone.

[DaveJord]

@snsl153 come on you just give me a disagree face... marvel me with your greater wisdom.

[Snsl153]

Why are you being such an asshole here?

[DaveJord]

Because you offer nothing, your criticism isn't constructive. You expect "humanity" to change in order to safe itself, and you can even say what specifically. Offer something constructive, please.

[Anonymous]

No. You can't change human nature and it is naive to believe otherwise.

I’ve seen a lot of violence in my life and have been in war. I’ve studied military history since I was a kid.

People are violent, it’s just what we do. However, violence for sport or entertainment is an entirely different matter.

Humanity is tribal. It’s just what we do. People want what’s best for their family/people/religion/clan/organization/business/tribe/city/state/nation/region. They conversely feel distant from the other (fill in the blank) by virtue of its own different-ness towards them. The West vs East. North vs South. Etc etc etc

War is the continuation of politics. People and groups have to either live together, or if they can not live together conflict ensues. It’s inevitable. But we’re looking at a very narrow type of warfare. What’s worse, a short term year long war with bullets flying? Or economic sanctions against a nation that cripples its economy, resulting in poverty and malnutrition for over a decade? Or just a cyberattack that say, results in widespread power outages? That’s warfare.

Its just a tendency humans have. Like a snake that bites or a bird that sings a song. Violence, and eventually, organized wide scale warfare, is just what human beings do.

We have a propensity for violence and we are social creatures.

You may as well ask why wolves hunt in packs. It’s just what they do. 🤷‍♂️

[Snsl153]

You're just making excuses, and lame ones at that! The central claim I make here is that human nature is horribly flawed, and I suggest we at least try to fix that, in any way we know how. Giving up (as you have here) just isn't an option, because it will only be a matter of time before something happens that will lead to our planet becoming a lifeless, irradiated wasteland.

[Opinion Owner]

You can’t fix human nature lame ass. Can you make a fish climb a tree? Can you make a money paint the Mona Lisa?

You’re asking of humanity that which it isn’t capable of doing. You may as well ask a cow to fly like a bird.

[Opinion Owner]

*monkey

[DaveJord]

@snsl153 How do you your persecetive isn't horribly flawed? What makes you so sure your primse is accurate or even right?

We could do nothing and planet becomes a waste land, we could do everything right and something still makes it a wasteland... you're little too fatalistic for most I think.

[DaveJord]

@agagagagaga. You're missing the piont the asker was never going to care about your answer... she already has it all figured out. Don't you know, she has the solution to all her own problems she tjat has created for herself... problem is she can't action any of her solutions because nobody else gets it but her... other than is just say you don't get it, she's already knows everything and were all fucked.

[Opinion Owner]

@DaveJord Oh I know. I’m just always amazed at people who think that the problems inherent in humanity can somehow be done away with, as if they are the first who realized that mankind is wicked and that they have the answers. 😂

[DaveJord]

@agagagagaga Totally agree but this person doesn't give answers, just says your making excuses... but other that contributes nothing of value... maybe that's the real problem. Bottom feeders sucking slim off of the bottom then complaining about how they can't swim with the big boys because they don't like shit eaters... well if you eat and spue shit all day... you might be full of shit.

[Snsl153]

@DaveJord What the hell are you going on about?

[Snsl153]

@DaveJord People like you are a big part of the problem, because you're not even willing to recognise that humanity is in deep trouble unless major changes are made, and soon.

[DaveJord]

What changes chicken little?

[JustAnj]

You want to fix anything in life you need to fix yourself first. Remove yourself from everything that makes you view the world in a one sided mind and explore the side that does make life better. Explore the people who have beat stereo types, explore the happiness that is held in others. Explore positivity over negativity. Expose yourself to the truth and allow others to follow behind.

You can not force people to understand change you have to be that change in yourself to understand people and influence greatness.

[jshm2]

Nah, you're just mostly illiterate on the matter and being a drama queen.

What humans have done good for one another far outdoes the bad. It's one reason we are on top of the food chain. We care for our sick and old, we progress on the previous, and we build, collaborate and develop in a global scale.

No animal can compare - though probably ants could run us as a close second.

[vald9inches]

Sorry ants are 1000 times more civilized than whatever society we have now.

[Jamesshinobi]

we are Gods children and a reflection of the Environment we were created in. 99% of the universe is so vilent amd Hellish that life cannot survive. Dolphins have been known to kill for fun, snakes and spiders slowly torture and kill their pray, cats and sea otters mostly rape to mate. ants enslave other ant colonies after conquering. praying mantises kill thier mates, lions murder lion cubs of their rivals. no. we are generally pretty decent. i dont think Human nature is flawed, i think you are flawed and you are projecting

[TransAm85]

U ever heard of an Indian philosopher named Sadhguru? Self-preservation and desire to expand is a part of human nature. He's a very smart man.. "The walls that block you are one hundred percent your creation. And these can be dismantled. You have no work with existence. You only have work with the existence that you have created."

[DaveJord]

100% agree with you.

[jasco]

Whats wrong with wanting your soul to have every lasting life after death? As for eternal life, I think its stupid. All the other things you said, well experiences cause people to make certain choices, ofc people can choose to be different but most would rather not

[007kingifrit]

human nature cannot be changed, only strong institutions can be built with the inherent imperfection in mind to mitigate it

* never centralize authority, keep the public armed
* do not give incentives for people in power to enrich themselves and keep term limits short
* keep diversity to a minimum so people don't fight when bad times come
* adhere to the natural sex roles of men and women as we are designed to compliment eachother

[drivingjeep]

Nope. If I were Jesus I'd be pissed too. If he could see us now he'd be like what the fuck was I thinking. Tortured and nailed to the cross for a bunch of racist, sexist and violent assholes. They can't govern themselves for shit and their 911 officials are about as dumb and worthless as a goddamn fart joke.

[MarkRet]

It's in our nature to destroy ourselves >

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kpEDSvaP_-8

[Snsl153]

I see you clearly see the problem. Our nature to destroy ourselves will inevitably lead... to our destruction. How could it be otherwise? We've been lucky so far in that the big red button hasn't been pushed YET, but how much time do we really have left? It shouldn't be this way.

[exitseven]

@snsl153 I give it six months tops.

[MarkRet]

Unfortunately, we are what we are. We've been competing against and fighting wars since prehistoric days. That spirit of competition has built the civilization we have now. I guess the only way to fix it would be if the human population radically decreased, then there would be less fighting over resources. While we're at it, we should only allow reproduction for people who have calm peaceful demeanors, kind of like breeding Golden Retrievers instead of German Shepherds. I know, it sounds stupid, and will never be done, but there you go. There's also religious teaching. Those religions that practice peace, generosity, and acceptance of others should be promoted over those that practice violence and intolerance.

[SeekingVirginWife]

Humanity was solved until ______ were given the right to vote, and allowed ______ to be involved in politics and central banking.

That is all. :)

[Snsl153]

Your comment is meaningless.