OT: Online Civility

[Anonymous Coward]

A good chunk of my mindset here is derived from the Fundamental Attribution Error, which is a logical fallacy about judging people (for who they are in terms of their value as people) on the basis of their behaviors.
That we tend to judge others as bad for doing something bad, whereas for ourselves, we never say we are bad people when we behave terribly. Instead, we appeal to circumstances and explain why we are good people who messed up that time. And partly to eliminate that double standard but also because it is a far more optimistic outlook, I choose to believe that we are correct in how we address ourselves and that others deserve an identical treatment.
That all people are just people behaving in any maddening, boring, or uplifting variety of ways based largely on their history since birth and their circumstances in each moment when they do that thing we judge.

[Drew4UTk]

It isn't popular, but I tend to veer hard in the opposite direction -- that there are zero good or bad people. Just people. 

Sir, respectfully, this is far from correct.  there are people who are just plain bad.  relative to standards of the culture, "contract with society" and all that jazz even accounted for- there are people who just want to see and do bad things.  i will strike a comment as such up as 'lack of exposure' as opposed to willingness of applying relativism of morals. 
i had a long response posted that offered some of the things i've seen in my travels first hand, but they are personal and should stay that way.  there is evil, and there is good i am certain.  they may coexist (and do) in the same person (most people) with a ever fluctuating dynamic, but... there are some that are lost in whole and seemingly driven by the desire to be bad. 
you can attempt an objective vantage as if extracting yourself from the experiment of human nature and postulate 'there are no good or bad people, just people', but it doesn't add up.  There is possibly a layer below the surface that could prove your position, but the surface will kill your ass dead and with a quickness long before you even scratch it and without concern of your suspicions or understandings IF you get the opportunity to meet a truly 'bad' person who has this intent for whatever reason- which renders your position moot- because you're part of this experiment too whether you want to be or not. 

[Anonymous Coward]

On the first paragraph, I disagree as strongly as you do with me. And that's OK. I think humans are prone to projection. That all of us have that evil you describe in us, too, and good for us to usually suppress it! But when we see others failing to suppress it, we label them as irredeemable. Nevertheless, when we give that label, we nearly always ignore the story that got the person to that moment and are also judging them for behavior that we'd treat somewhat differently if it came from ourselves instead of them. And I think those are major errors on our end.

At the same time, I'm in medicine. I've seen a significant quantity of the horrifying. Kindly try not to patronize me as only having this opinion because I have the luxury of naivety. Because that degrades the conversation by assuming I've seen only lollipops and risks turning this into a competition of who's seen worse, which is below us.

[Anonymous Coward]

you can attempt an objective vantage as if extracting yourself from the experiment of human nature and postulate 'there are no good or bad people, just people', but it doesn't add up.  There is possibly a layer below the surface that could prove your position, but the surface will kill your ass dead and with a quickness long before you even scratch it and without concern of your suspicions or understandings IF you get the opportunity to meet a truly 'bad' person who has this intent for whatever reason- which renders your position moot- because you're part of this experiment too whether you want to be or not.

I have no illusions about what ills may befall me if I run into a horrifyingly-behaving person. For many of them, I acknowledge how unrealistic it is that they will change how prone they are to terrible behavior. That's why, so many times, I wrote that it's essential to punish and good practice to never trust them.
But I do take the step to insist it isn't because they are technically irredeemable but because a person whose story and behaviors are that far gone is highly unlikely to stop behaving horrifyingly.

[Drew4UTk]

i didn't mean to come off patronizing at all.  Apologies for it being presented in a way that allowed that perception.

i think the point i was trying to make did find target, though, in the last post-

I have no illusions about what ills may befall me if I run into a horrifyingly-behaving person. For many of them, I acknowledge how unrealistic it is that they will change how prone they are to terrible behavior. That's why, so many times, I wrote that it's essential to punish and good practice to never trust them.
But I do take the step to insist it isn't because they are technically irredeemable but because a person whose story and behaviors are that far gone is highly unlikely to stop behaving horrifyingly.

and that being we're stuck in this 'experiment' which is reality- and though a vantage above or outside of reality may support not only 'good people/bad people' but also the absence of 'good/bad' altogether, as much of it is emotionally driven anyway. 

i'm guessing there have been paths i crossed with people dead set on doing things that make no sense whatsoever and offer even them no advantage- and lends a measure of proof that 'some folks just want to see the world burn'.  

[Anonymous Coward]

We're all good Drew. And I also think there are people in this world who only want to watch it burn. But I think that's compatible with my philosophy too. Those people have complicated stories to explain why they became the way they are. And the wanting of the burning and the doing of the burning don't necessarily have to be who they are, but *how* they are.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Sir, respectfully, this is far from correct.  there are people who are just plain bad.  relative to standards of the culture, "contract with society" and all that jazz even accounted for- there are people who just want to see and do bad things.  i will strike a comment as such up as 'lack of exposure' as opposed to willingness of applying relativism of morals.
i had a long response posted that offered some of the things i've seen in my travels first hand, but they are personal and should stay that way.  there is evil, and there is good i am certain.  they may coexist (and do) in the same person (most people) with a ever fluctuating dynamic, but... there are some that are lost in whole and seemingly driven by the desire to be bad.

Drew, I know that given your own history as a soldier, you've seen a lot of things that whether you label it subjectively or objectively evil, are horrors that should never had occurred.
I think what AC might be saying is that a lot of those horrors were again a product of their environment. That some of the people you fought against, had they been born and raised in the USA, might have turned into model citizens and perhaps soldiers such as yourself. And that he's saying that some of your comrades in arms--guys you trusted with your life--had they been born into the environment in which you fought, would have become those evil people.
Essentially I think AC's point is that people are very much inherently malleable, and not inherently good or evil. It's a point with which I have qualified agreement; some people would turn out good in good situations, and evil in evil situations. They are absolutely a product of the environment. 
I think your point is that some people are just bad. And it's a point with which I also have qualified agreement. There are people who are the product of loving households in affluent and tolerant communities, but something in them is so askew that they become sociopaths, or sadists, or elsewhere. Nothing in their external environment made them this way. Now, it might be their brain chemistry and not that they're just born immoral, but I can see your point in calling them inherently evil because it was their own internal problem. 
So I think it's a mix of nature and nurture. Whether the "nature" is a chance mix of biochemistry or a inherent moral depravity doesn't matter for the purpose of how to deal with those people; they should be confined in such a way that their nature cannot cause the rest of us harm.

[SFBadger96]

CD--good video. 

[Cincydawg]

The wife and I were walking in the park a few weeks back, not too many people around, nice day but midweek.  Some dude walking towards us is yelling stuff, looking at me, walking my way, yelling something about "F the US" and whatever, with an African accent.  I got between him and the wife looking for a tree limb or something if needed, he was a scrawny dude but young, yelling quite loudly.  We were able to move 10 or so feet from where he passed, and he just passed us.  That's the only time since we moved that I had a bit of a fright.

He walked on yelling obscenities at the air.  I guess he is "well known" in the area, have not seen him since, and I go to the park almost daily.

The encounter was seconds long but it gets one to thinking about crazies.  I was not carrying, I abhor the idea of needing to shoot another human, but had I been I would have had hand on implement.

The park seems very safe, we see a lot of younger females running rather scantily clad, and often alone, and mothers with strollers etc very often.  But it only takes one of course.  

I saw a policeman yesterday on the street on one of those two wheelers going by.  I thought that was a good device for them.  I forget their name now.

[Drew4UTk]

... @bwarbiany and @Anonymous Coward , I get this.  People are products of environment.  however, after my child was introduced in the world and after observing her everyday for the past five years- i am wiling to bet the farm 'instinct' plays an equal role.  I used to think to myself "what in the hell am i going to do when little boys come to call" and that changed as her personality developed and now it's "those poor effers, i wonder if i should warn them?"....

on a serious note, though:

i still can't swallow it.  some people are bad.  think: wiring. chemicals.  predisposition.  

insofar as being a Marine or attache to groups doing defense stuff- people gonna do bad things in combat.  what people are capable of, it's always surprised me, is that is surprises them.  i wager people have no clue what they are capable of until they're forced to decide. this totally wiped my concept of black/white/wrong/right... "you just don't know until...you do..."  i think this incredibly terrifying realization contributes to the majority of combat induced PTSD.  it has less to to with what happened than it does the person's actions or conceptualization as a result.  

but this isn't what leads my belief into some people just plain being bad.... what does is 'what people do when they know they can get by with it no matter what that is' which is to say you can observe their true character.  the lack of what most people consider integrity or character in people you'd think have it in spades is what i speak of... conditional? "contract with society"? this falls inline with @Anonymous Coward 's position and is valid... the Stanford Prison Experiment? It would seem to also fall inline- and it does... however my contention is that this creature lives in all of us and is capable of escaping, while in others it is encouraged into 'escaping'- if for no other reason than to 'see if they can get by with it'... and these people are bad.  chemicals? brain injury? wiring? don't know.... just that some people are pre-disposed to do wrong knowing it's wrong and against their 'contract with society'.      

[FearlessF]

i still can't swallow it.  some people are bad.  think: wiring. chemicals.  predisposition.  

unfortunately, I wholeheartedly agree
some humans are evil

regardless of their experiences and/or environment

[bayareabadger]

I wish I could just assume things getting more visible...
But I actually think that social media is making this worse, because people are sharing things to their entire online universe that they would only share in close company before. And they're often doing it not in long-form debate, but in catchy memes that completely remove all nuance of a topic--so people increasingly think nuance doesn't exist.
As if we weren't already in a sound-bite, tl;dr culture, social media and memes have made it worse.

I don’t know if it’s quite that as much as, we’re in a mode where we seek out what we agree with, but also what we don’t do we can be caustic about it. But now, instead of hate reading the local columnist three times a week, we can seek out ALL of it, on our own, and then fire back by calling for his or her job. 
I think we’ve always been bad with nuance, we just have more chance to show it. (Plus I’ll agree there’s a certain death of expertise). 
(I meant to respond to a past post about journalists needing to become more expert in technical fields. I kind of saw it the other way. It’s more important for people in technical fields to become better communicators, as the barriers for who has a platform get lower and lower)

[Cincydawg]

Are sociopaths inherently evil?

[Drew4UTk]

Are sociopaths inherently evil?

Some are profoundly important to society... They got there and will remain there by having laser sharp focus void of distractions most folks have due to conscious or moral code. Not all of them are social failures. Its actually in their better interest to obey the rules yet navigate them in a way advantagious to them (and of your interests are aligned, you too).  Its said as many as one in 20 are full blown sociopaths, and its also said they are valuable to big companies in management positions as the symbiotic relationship flourishes.  
Strange world, no?  
Now psychopaths... That may be different.. I'm not sure a put that either though, to be honest, nor if they're "bad" either .... Sympathy for the devil and all that.