10-03-2006, 02:18 AM
Anonmon Wrote:Please stop the self-righteousness. It does no good, and merely makes you sadder. If the world were truly so bad, "they" would already have imprisoned most of us and shut down this site.
There should be no complaining about human nature. Humans are just packs of impulses and desires, including the desire to do good, the moral impulse. Quite a damn few people act on it, and you shouldn't defame them.
You have no cause for depression, as these seeming catastrophes in fact only come to your mind by virtue of "the overreporting of the negative." People emphasize and publicize the bad things that happen, and so we hear of them the most. Every generation thinks they live through the Apocalypse, but none ever do or will.
Now sing from Monty Python... "Always look on the bright side of life..." I will award cookies and bonus points for crucifying oneself while singing.
Hurrah!
Ghost_Op Wrote:It's interesting that a few of you are trying to justify kindness as wrong.
Let's take this 'Free Hugs' campaign. Did a lot of people do it just as an impulse? Yes. But what about the small amount of people who really NEEDED a hug? Somebody who was about to commit suicide, has financial problems, needs a push in the right direction. Something as simple as a hug could help give these people the confidence they need to try to work out their problems.
Marine, quite frankly, your being an apathetic asshole. Society will always be flawed, but what's wrong with the people who try to make a change for the better in it? Those people who, say, fix houses for the old and poor or run food drives for those who can't feed themselves? Humans have the most powerful minds on the Earth and debatably in the galaxy. Instead of using it to follow their 'let the weak die out and the strong prosper' mentality, which the world follows by itself, we try to help other people who normally would not make it on their own. Look at Steven Hawkings; if he were any other animal on Earth, he'd be dead within days. Did we follow the survival of the fittest mentality? No, we cared for him and educated him, and look what we got; one of the most intelligent and important figures in modern science.
We do kind things for a desire to make ourselves feel good, this is obvious. But what's wrong with making somebody else feel good in the process? Let's go out on a limb and define 'good feelings' on a 1-10 scale. If helping someone out gave you AND the person you helped a '3' feeling, and, oh, I don't know, let's say, watching a movie also gave you a '3' feeling, which one would you choose? The one that benefits solely you, or the one that acts on our moral impulses to help others (by the way, the assumption here is that both required the same amount of effort, work, etc.)?
Am I an extremist who would do something like that? HELL NO, I'm just not that devoted. But somebody with that desire to help others and the devotion to that cause should be admired, not put down. I'll do little things like help an old lady with her bags or retrieve a ball that rolled into the street that some kids were using. Help someone out, make yourself feel good, make someone else feel good.
Once again, "hurray!", but Hawking was disabled after he was educated, not before. And an extra special "hurray" for stopping a spoil-sport.
To add, I think Marine needs a hug.