Potential downsides of understanding people’s motivations to do “bad” things (however you define “bad”):
-
Show this thread
-
You could become cynical/misanthropic as you see how many people have these “low motives” and this could damage your ability to relate to people
1 reply 0 retweets 7 likesShow this thread -
You could become extremely guilty as you realize how many “low motives” you yourself possess
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
You could become less willing to oppose bad behavior because you find it easier to empathize with
1 reply 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
You could become trapped in “low motives” or dysfunctional mindsets yourself, as a result of spending too much attention on modeling them in others
2 replies 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
I think these potential downsides are actually real and people who fear them have a point. I’d love to hear the case for these fears being unrealistic or surmountable.
4 replies 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @s_r_constantin
I find that a lot of times when people do to-me-incomprehensibly bad things their motivations aren't necessarily "low"!
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
-
Replying to @s_r_constantin
I mean, it makes sense, right. The members of any sufficiently large group of people are not going to be that far off Median Human Badness (although certainly there are groups that are worse/better than average). So any group is going to have lots of people w/ noble motivations.
2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @ozyfrantz
But what if actual Median Human Nature is much much worse than Narrative Human Nature (the way characters in stories behave, or folk theories of psychology)? ie most of us are much worse than we think “people” typically are?
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
I think that people are about as good as the ones in Grimm‘s tales or Dostoyevski‘s or Kundera‘s novels. Many act on what they perceive as their immediate incentives while being myopic, but amazingly, substantial chunks of civilization endure and prevail.
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.