this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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[โ€“] shalafi@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I get beat up every time I post something like this. Almost every nasty thing we see in the world is a simple case of an individual or group working towards their own best interests.

But why then do people do shitty things that they have to know will hurt someone? It's not that they're evil, they just don't care if you're not in their Monkeysphere.

Can't think of anything I've read that puts this together so well. Yeah, I know, cracked.com. Give it a spin, it really changed my thinking about the world. (It's old so the formatting in kinda hosed up.)

https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

I read the article. It was entertaining, and there's definitely a lot of truth in what they write, but I found the whole thing to be, very ironically, over simplified. I think what bothers me the most is the author assumes/implies that human empathy does not extend beyond our line of sight. As if it's impossible for me to be considerate towards people I don't know. Which is complete bullshit. Their arguments seem to assume that a general sense of morality does not exist amongst people.

I, personally, believe that most people are good and value being good. Certainly there are plenty that do not, but I believe they are the minorty. Fortunately my gripes with the article don't really discount the main point being made, it just suggests that things aren't as simple as the author tried to make it seem.