Years ago I concluded (wrongly or rightly) that most people are neutral, a small handfull are actually good people (willing to sacrifice their personal benefit for people they don’t know with no expectation of gaining from it, even in the form of social approval) and a small handful are assholes, but the assholes do such a disproportionate amount of damage that they end up having a massive impact on everybody else.
Well, that’s the second part of my theory but I didn’t went into it to avoid muddling the point I was making:
I think the “neutral” majority shift more to one side or the other depending on who dominates society and the main sources of culture and information in it.
So in present “Greed is good” (very much a Sociopath slogan) times with mainstream media and a large section of the Culture production and distribution (in the form of TV, but also TV Show and Movie making) in the hands of extremelly wealthy people and when those we are told we should look up to are people like Musk (well, him specifically maybe not anymore) and Bezos, the “neutral” majority has shifted significantly towards the asshole side of things.
The World would be a lot different if our “heroes” were Scientists and Environmentalists.
yes and if human well being was the goal over profit. profit benefits the few, and it’s an amoral driving force. unfortunately it’s been conflated with freedom and fairness.
Years ago I concluded (wrongly or rightly) that most people are neutral, a small handfull are actually good people (willing to sacrifice their personal benefit for people they don’t know with no expectation of gaining from it, even in the form of social approval) and a small handful are assholes, but the assholes do such a disproportionate amount of damage that they end up having a massive impact on everybody else.
there are lots of systemic forces that incentivize being an asshole as well
Well, that’s the second part of my theory but I didn’t went into it to avoid muddling the point I was making:
So in present “Greed is good” (very much a Sociopath slogan) times with mainstream media and a large section of the Culture production and distribution (in the form of TV, but also TV Show and Movie making) in the hands of extremelly wealthy people and when those we are told we should look up to are people like Musk (well, him specifically maybe not anymore) and Bezos, the “neutral” majority has shifted significantly towards the asshole side of things.
The World would be a lot different if our “heroes” were Scientists and Environmentalists.
yes and if human well being was the goal over profit. profit benefits the few, and it’s an amoral driving force. unfortunately it’s been conflated with freedom and fairness.