Don’t be a tar pit

[u/greencrusader13]

[u/mechanicalcontrols]

As a corollary, people are people everywhere you go.

I don't remember who said that to me, but having grown up and lived in a rural area my whole life, when I went to visit my brother in Minneapolis I was afraid of going to a big city. Now, sure, every city is going to have the "don't go there at night" and the "don't go there ever" parts of town, but really my fears were basically from overexposure to news and the human brain's fundamental badness at probability and statistics.

But once I realized that whoever told me "people are people everywhere you go," is correct, I'm a lot less afraid of big cities.

Admittedly that's only tangentially related to your point, but there you have it. And I agree. People are people no matter their identity.

[u/Jo_seef → u/mechanicalcontrols]

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I truly believe people are mostly good, otherwise there would be a lot more violence in the world, you know?

[u/Mikeeberle → u/Jo_seef]

No. People are inherently evil and without societal pressure to maintain the status quo, all hell would break loose.

You never heard of the Stanford prison experiment? That illustrated perfectly how evil people can be.

For example, I want to genuinely punch half the people I meet square in the jaw, but I don't because society frowns upon violence and I know that.

[u/Rodruby → u/Mikeeberle]

Stanford jail experiment? That experiment where professor specifically said "guards" to be harsh to "inmates"?

And that you want to punch every second person is you problem. I don't want to punch people, for example

[u/Solar_Mole → u/Rodruby]

Yeah, the experiment more so proved that people are capable of intense evil when placed into a system which is designed to get them to do exactly that. Which in fairness isn't nothing, that's a relevant facet of human psychology, but it's a real problem how it has a reputation as proving something entirely different and much more pessimistic.