Why can't everyone in the world just be nice to each other?

[The happy Objectivist]

Self interest (the original sin)

Rational self-interest is not the essence of evil but the first "commandment" of morality if there was such a thing as moral commandments. It's the irrational that is evil because man's life requires of him to think and to think rationally, i.e., in accordance with the facts and not his feeling or wishes. Any evil act reduces to irrationallity. It's the "original sin" because all others proceed from it.

Every living species has a means of survival. For man, it is his reasoning mind. To knowingly take irrational actions is the hallmark of evil, e.g., to seek the unearned or the impossible, to live by means of faith or force, to evade facts, to drop context, to knowingly employ fallacious reasoning, ect.

At least that's what Objectivism holds. Until rational self-interest and not self-sacrifice is the standard of virtue among men we will not have a decent world to live in.

I can tell you where we are headed as a society based on the ideas that the majority hold. I think we're on the path to a right wing, religion based government next. this might make you happy but your joy will be short lived. It terrifies me. But man has free will and he can choose the rational over the irrational.

 

[timothyu]

But man has free will and he can choose the rational over the irrational.

Yet makes the world in our own animal nature image, preferring oppositional or territorial thinking rather than stepping back and no longer taking sides.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

Unfortunately, yes. Most people live like animals on the perceptual level of consciousness. They act on emotion and the whim of the moment. Objectivists call this being concrete bound, stuck at the animal level of consciousness. That doesn't have to be the case but it has been throughout most of human history. And there had better be a change quick or we will most likely destroy the world in a nuclear war.

 

[timothyu]

And there had better be a change quick or we will most likely destroy the world in a nuclear war.

As long as world leaders are allowed to grow fat and rich at others expense I doubt they would go that far and blow it up. Greed does not often shoot itself in the foot. Sheer madness on the other hand....

 

[The happy Objectivist]

As long as world leaders are allowed to grow fat and rich at others expense I doubt they would go that far and blow it up. Greed does not often shoot itself in the foot. Sheer madness on the other hand....

Some of it is greed, I'll grant you which I would define as desire for the unearned, but there is a much more sinister motivation for many, especially on the left but not exclusively and that is hatred for the good for being the good. As I said in my original response, they hate life and those who are sucessful at it and they only wish to destroy. Their clamoring after unearned wealth is a pretense I think, to hide their real motivation from themselves. They truly are nihilists. They hate values and unfortunately, they are in charge of the world and the education system. I shudder to think about what the future will be like. Unless something major happens to wake people up out of their concrete bound mentalities, it looks pretty bleak.

One thing's for sure, what's needed is nothing less than a full-scale philosophical revolution away from the toxic ideas held by the vast majority of the world's population. I think that just such a major event is about the happen but I don't hold out much hope because the so-called "good" side holds the same basic ideas.

1. In metaphysics: Subjectivism

2. In epistemology: Unreason or mysticism.

3. In ethics: the morality of self-sacrifice.

4. In politics: Collectivism

These are the basic ideas that are destroying the world.

That is why people can't just be nice to each other. They look upon others as a means to their ends and they have this reinforced by the dominant ethics being taught today and they are anti-freedom and individualism, they are collectivists and they've never been shown an alternative.

 

[SapphirePrincess]

Sin, in short. If you know you have been mean before, then I think you can probably gather some of the specific reasons why people mistreat each other. It all comes down to the same problem, though.

 

[Semper-Fi]

Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked: who can know it?
-

Jeremiah 32:39 (KJV)
and I will give them one heart, and one way, that they
may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their
children after them:

Ezekiel 36:26 (KJV)
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will
I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart
out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 11:19 (KJV)
And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit
within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh,
and will give them an heart of flesh:
-

Psalm 57:7 (KJV)
My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed:
I will sing and give praise.

 

[Ligurian]

Rational self-interest is not the essence of evil but the first "commandment" of morality if there was such a thing as moral commandments. It's the irrational that is evil because man's life requires of him to think and to think rationally, i.e., in accordance with the facts and not his feeling or wishes. Any evil act reduces to irrationallity. It's the "original sin" because all others proceed from it.

Every living species has a means of survival. For man, it is his reasoning mind. To knowingly take irrational actions is the hallmark of evil, e.g., to seek the unearned or the impossible, to live by means of faith or force, to evade facts, to drop context, to knowingly employ fallacious reasoning, ect.

At least that's what Objectivism holds. Until rational self-interest and not self-sacrifice is the standard of virtue among men we will not have a decent world to live in.

I can tell you where we are headed as a society based on the ideas that the majority hold. I think we're on the path to a right wing, religion based government next. this might make you happy but your joy will be short lived. It terrifies me. But man has free will and he can choose the rational over the irrational.

I actually had to take this test to find out what right and left wing means.
Am I 'Left Wing' or 'Right Wing' personality quiz?

 

[rturner76]

People would rather hate each other than heal each other.

 

[timothyu]

People would rather hate each other than heal each other.

Possibly because we resent sharing our self in 7 billion bodies.

 

[Ligurian]

As long as world leaders are allowed to grow fat and rich at others expense I doubt they would go that far and blow it up. Greed does not often shoot itself in the foot. Sheer madness on the other hand....

I'm not so sure about that greed thing. If you're stealing other people's water, at what point will they come to take it back from you? If you've been robbing the world via unfair marketplace deals... they'll be coming to devour your flesh and burn you with fire.
There actually is a Samson Option on the books. Probably filed under the "If I can't have it, no one can" venue. Which is why those who are destroying the world will have to be stopped by God.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

I actually had to take this test to find out what right and left wing means.
Am I 'Left Wing' or 'Right Wing' personality quiz?

I already know that I am neither on the right nor the left. I am in a category that is not even on that spectrum. I am a radical for reality, reason, individualism, and capitalism. Neither the right nor the left is consistent on any of these ideas. They share more in common with each other than they do with me. Both the right and the left deny objective reality, they both are to some extent anti-reason, they both are collectivist, and they are both for collectivism. That's why I say that we have never been given a true alternative to statism. What we have is left-wing and right-wing statism. And I think we are heading towards right-wing statism. Neither side holds reality, reason, individualism, or capitalism as absolute as I do.

 

[Ligurian]

I already know that I am neither on the right nor the left. I am in a category that is not even on that spectrum. I am a radical for reality, reason, individualism, and capitalism. Neither the right nor the left is consistent on any of these ideas. They share more in common with each other than they do with me. Both the right and the left deny objective reality, they both are to some extent anti-reason, they both are collectivist, and they are both for collectivism. That's why I say that we have never been given a true alternative to statism. What we have is left-wing and right-wing statism. And I think we are heading towards right-wing statism. Neither side holds reality, reason, individualism, or capitalism as absolute as I do.

And I'm Libertarian.

"Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!"
--William Wallace, Braveheart

 

[The happy Objectivist]

And I'm Libertarian.

"Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!"
--William Wallace, Braveheart

I'm not.

 

[FireDragon76]

People in the western world, particularly in the US, are barbaric and uncivilized. The corruption of Christianity through right-wing politics being the last straw.

 

[rlp21858]

hello Solum Aeternum,


i think the problem is the amount of pride that's infected everyone, including a lot of Christians. but i also think there's a solution and it starts with ourselves. i think people who are unkind are searching for something, but to reach them i believe it takes someone who won't follow after that pride, one who will endure embarassment/humiliation/etc for Christ's sake. it's also a good way to see the reality of our faith because it's starting to cost us something. the Bible says a believer is going to suffer for Christ's sake, and i think a lot of this suffering comes from correctly dealing with unkind/inexperienced people. i made a write-up explaining what i think makes sense about it all:


A Believer's Thoughts on Christian Suffering


if you believe this is true, i encourage you to gradually start to apply it if you haven't yet, *and also to tell someone.

 

[Solum Aeternum]

So people are mean...so what? Poor sensitive you doesn't like it. You'd prefer it if the world was all sunshine and lollipops. Well sorry but it's not, if you can't handle that, well that's your problem, but the world has no reason to care about what you do or don't like. People are right, it's life, learn to deal with it. We ain't here to make you happy.

I'm sorry but none of what you said can justify why people choose to be mean to each other. Just saying "it's life deal with it" is such a cop out response because life doesn't have to be that way/. Being mean for the sake of being mean because that's life just fulfils people's self fulfilling prophecy. Why not strive to be kinder?

 

[returntosender]

Too many mean people

 

[timothyu]

Dog eat dog upbringing tends to trigger the animal survival instinct.

 

[returntosender]

We live in a fallen world