Faith in People

[ratatosk]

I feel like a lot of people I know tend to have very little faith in People, or Humanity in general, but are pretty willing to give the benefit of the doubt to individual humans they meet. Maybe I'm wrong, and most of my friends are really the other way around? Or neither? I'm curious whether this is something I can get at in a poll, and have

Comments

[ayalanya]

I kind of want to do that, now.

[ratatosk]

That usually applies to a Christmas tree, which is a cut tree, indoors . . .

Decorating live trees for Christmas usually involves long strings of lights.

[ayalanya]

This is true! Perhaps we should decorate eisa with long strings of lights!

[oonh]

I had a dream once, in which my arm was made of christmas tree. The major bones were made of wood, and the sinews and any knobby things, er, bones and tuberosities were somewhere in between being the spherical mirrored christmas ornaments that glowed. And I could move my arm. It was the most interesting thing to see.

[randysmith]

Before I read your wild speculation, I want to say that the phrase "people are basically good" is much more about attitude towards individuals than humanity as a whole. If I meet a random person on the street, I think they're likely to do basically the right thing in most situations. If I think about where the human race is going, I get fairly cynical (though I think the chances of our surviving the next 100 years with our civilization basically intact is > 50%, I don't think it's a lot greater than 50%). Emergent properties are not always your friend :-{.

Now I'll go read the rest of your post :-}.

[randysmith]

Huh. Interesting speculation. I suspect there are multiple different ways to twist it, though, and I'd like to hear yours. (I.e. how do you feel "treating people like trees" leads to whatever your particular political views are?)

For me, I think there's a relationship--I don't trust large scale emergent behavior of large groups of people (e.g. corporations, mobs, etc.) so I want government regulation and control on that level, but I do trust individuals so I want minimal government interference in the freedom of individuals.

But I remain worried that my "trusting all individuals, but don't trust the system" isn't actually the answer to the question you were asking. Specifically I'm not a believer in "my friends are good people, but most humans are scum" pattern; I just don't trust groups, whoever they're composed of.

[plymouth]

This is very close to my answer and it was my interpretation of the question.

[ratatosk]

I don't have strong opinions as to whether how I fall on these things affects my political views. Your examples were exactly the kind of relationship I had in mind, though!

[moominmolly]

Yes, like this. I trust humanity *and* individuals more than I trust groups.

[gee_tar]

I was just thinking that myself, so I'm not sure how irrational a thought it is.