VespiWalsh t1_iqoszd8 wrote on October 2, 2022 at 12:07 AM

Reply to comment by tooth_mascarpone in Effect of COVID-19 Vaccines on Reducing the Risk of Long COVID by mightx

I am very familiar with the wonderful masking protocol compliance in East Asian countries, have used Japan as an example of why masks and social distancing work while trying to supress the transmission of respiratory viruses while arguing with idiots.

Is it possible for humans to put aside their selfish natures with extensive cultural conditioning? Most likely yes. Unfortunately that doesn't change the fact that humans are a selfish, short sighted species that are rarely capable of seeing beyond their noses, without extensive cultural conditioning to make them put the collective above the individual. Nurture may trump nature, but it will never be enough to completely elude its grotesque specter.

tooth_mascarpone t1_iqoxugt wrote on October 2, 2022 at 12:46 AM

>selfish natures

According way back to Freud we can have both selfish and altruistic impulses. "Human nature" is not a well stablished concept. There might exist multiple "human natures". What we now know, scientificaly, is that our personal experiences can exert more influence in our behaviour than previously thought. If there is some common denominator in humans (and we share that with most species) is that we try to adapt. If we have stability and peace, outside and inside, our behaviours tend to move towards helping others. If we have a culture that tells "you must compete with everyone, you must be the most, bigger, better" then we tend to compete.

VespiWalsh t1_iqp17ep wrote on October 2, 2022 at 1:13 AM

Many of Freud's theories have been disproven, but he might have been right on that one, but I don't think you need to be a scholar to come to that conclusion. Human nature wouldn't be identical for each individual, but would draw from a pool of established traits that make up the essence of what traits a human being can possess. Even if we have the potential for both, selfishness occurs in higher frequency and intensity.

>If we have stability and peace, outside and inside, our behaviours tend to move towards helping others.

The existence of mostly selfish billionaires disproves your point. They have stability and peace, but most of them pillage as much as they can. I've seen more generosity and altruism from those who have little to give.

>If there is some common denominator in humans (and we share that with most species) is that we try to adapt.

Proper adaptation would be dependant on the situation. Selfishness and altruism would be useful in different situation. In a small, subsistence village where everyone knows each other and the consequences for antisocial behavior are greater, altruism would be more valuable. In modern consumption driven society, selfishness will be more valuable.

Unfortunately I don't see any possible way to scientifically test human nature in an accurate manner without the experiment being unethical. So this issue can only be truly debated via philosophical methods.

tooth_mascarpone t1_iqp8c4n wrote on October 2, 2022 at 2:13 AM

>selfishness occurs in higher frequency and intensity

Maybe because that's an adaptation to current environment. As an example, propaganda is a mechanism to induce colective beliefs of the current state of something, the country, the world, etc. There are lots of data showing that some crucial social agreements that allowed the socio economic boom of the 60's untill the 90's are now outdated by the political decisions to cut economic balancing measures, starting in the 70's. That's one the reasons we believe in scarcity, violence, etc. Because those stats are regressing. You can also as an example easily see the differences between movies and series in the 1980's and 2010's regarding those themes. And the evolution in media consumption. And the advantages for polarized speech in politics in order to preserve power. Etc. This ends up becoming part of the current culture.

>The existence of mostly selfish billionaires disproves your point

I was expecting this to come up. It's not as you said: they do not have stability and peace, not inside. Most of them only have material peace, and it's frequently argued that the need to accumulate wealth is a way to compensate the lack of other things.

>In modern consumption driven society, selfishness will be more valuable.

This is of course very questionable and debatable.

>scientifically test human nature in an accurate manner

Observing babies has been tried. Of course there's lots of limitations there. What we can say is, then, that it is quite "irresponsible" to jump into conclusions regarding what "human nature" is or is not. Maybe we can just keep doing something very human: observe.

VespiWalsh t1_iqpadfd wrote on October 2, 2022 at 2:30 AM

You make some very solid points, and that we should continue to observe human nature before jumping to any conclusions about it and taking it as absolute, unshakable fact.