The image is a reddit post with the following text (automatically transcribed):
I remember I got into an argument on reddit awhile ago with a person over Italian food. It got to the point they were following me into other subs to harass me. I clicked on their profile to block them and their most recent post was them drinking their own piss on r/piss. At that moment I realized I had spent so much pointless time arguing about the taste of food with someone who drinks their own piss as a hobby. This site is a shit hole.
Humanity is a shithole. Social media is a cross-section.
I hate that pov so much.
Humanity is fantastic, wonderful, loving and amazing. It’s not a shit hole.
I’d argue society is really broken in some places, but not humanity.
As for Social media: it just brings out some dark side in some people. The vast majority of people on social media behave. It’s just that the outliers catch the attention.
Humans harm themselves, each other, animals, and the environment. Humans be destroyed, grrr…
I hate this pov so much.
I think it perpetuates that things are better than they actually are and inhibits change and progress… we’re all different I guess 🤷🏻♂️
Fair enough :)
I just don’t see how believing the worst in your fellow human can encourage you to improve things.
Pessimism is easy and lazy thinking. People also think it makes you look more insightful and wiser to look down your nose at everything.
But the poster you replied to has a point:
Just like most animals the greater majority of people try to avoid as many direct conflicts as possible IRL. And they’re full of empathy and compassion - even for other animals in distress and inanimate objects (saw off the fingers of a plastic doll in front of others and see how they treat you afterwards).
But of course people will lose a part of that compassion etc once they move within society without feeling like a part of it. One example is driving a car. You’re way less aware of being a part of society even though you’re “swimming” in it. Feeling a strong individual agency and being empowered by two tons of steel while simultaneously being greatly restricted by everyone and everything around you will do that to you.
Same goes for the (social) media landscape. We feel empowered by our own echo chambers and/or chosen media outlet while barely interacting with anyone who could challenge our beliefs (which, funnily enough, is often the right call in that context, because we can’t change strong opposing beliefs via social media). And since it’s all an indirect, mostly faceless interaction, our beliefs will automatically be strengthened and we’ll be more likely to agitate anyone with opposing beliefs (while still avoiding any direct conflict).
So I’d say it’s more of a flaw in our design, that is being exploited, than a general lack of sympathy/empathy (of which we actually have plenty).
Which means you can’t hold any one individual to higher standards. Because that’s not where we “fail”. It’d take a much broader appliance of social securities (housing, food, healthcare, education etc all over the world) and a fundamental change in the way we interact. But you and I won’t change that (though I guess it’s comforting telling ourselves that we could individually change things on a greater scale).
One major issue is we assume the motivations of others all the time, usually negative. Add anonymity to the mix and you have social media rage. A good place to start is to occasionally think “Maybe I’m not 100% right. Maybe they are at least partially right also.” Also, “What could be their reasons for thinking that?” without dismissing them out of hand. The press encourages rage by presenting us with a filter of negativity and constantly pressing our anger buttons.
True psychopaths exist but not to the extent people may think.
So everyone’s in agreement… humanity is a shithole
Thank you for being much more eloquent than me.
The average troll wouldn’t be an asshole in real life. They’d likely just be an average bloke like us all that lost theirselves in online anonimity.
Time and time again we see that in many disasters the majority of people in the affected community come together and help each other tremendously.
There is ofcourse always rotten apples and exceptions. That doesn’t take away from the fact that people are inherintly good to their fellow human.
If you consider that we are currently destroying our eco system that we need to survive and have known for over 50 years that the co2 levels will cause major issues, but nobody really felt the need to act. And when the countries actually sat together and made the Kyoto contracts the USA steped in and fucks up the whole idea. Thanks Bush you little Oil-fucker!
Considering that you could say humanity is fucked and humans are at fault. And if you look at it the people voting are at fault too, falling for company and other proparganda and voting for a government that fucks them even harder.
I would say humanity as we know it won’t exist anymore in 200 years. War, droughts, floods and shit will get us. Even if we would act now the whole planet would need to cooperate. No Chance!
Again, I’d blame society for that, not humanity.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the actual power in the world lies in the hand of just a fraction of percent of the people. Those asshole ruin it for everyone else.
Doesn’t mean the average human is evil.
Yeah, I know! But do you see anybody care about that? Do the votes for political parties show anything that would mean they don’t like those corrupted bastards?
No! Most people don’t care or think voting for the same parties will change sth.
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t care about this besides the one-off sociopaths you encounter on the internet (though I’m fairly convinced that they also care but just feel powerless to change things). The problem is that the priority for most people is not starving to death within the next month, and that makes it impossible to devote time and energy into solving more long term problems.
Worse, the average human is self absorbed and apathetic. This enables all of the truly evil to assert itself. Humanity is the sum of its choices and look where that leads. If it’s a battle of best vs worst natures, it’s become clear what side has prevailed.
Get off the internet and talk to some actual people
What do you mean by that? Real people are boring /s