People (that aren't psychopaths or sociopaths) are very good at individually being empathetic to other members of their in group, that haven't broken their ideological rules. However, even normal, empathetic people can shut off their empathy when people of a certain group belong to another out group, or are dehumanised (eg 'well dark skinned people aren't really human like light skinned people are, so it's fine to enslave them') or if they break your moral code (eg 'well they're gay, so it's morally justifiable to kill them')
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2025
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TBH I think this is more of a conditioning thing. Like, very young toddlers (up to like, 5-6 years old) literally cannot understand racism. This is actually lampshaded in Wolfenstein II, when BJ just talks to a black girl and tells her about all the shit his father says about her race but he straight up says he doesn't understand his reasons at all.
Again, I do not think people are evil by default. Hate is something that is taught, not inherent.
(I'm replying to you and the post you're replying to, if that makes sense.)
Racism is a single aspect of in and out groups. We didn't evolve to work in groups of more than 150, maybe 200 individuals max. People of any skin tone can be in my Monkeysphere, but if they're outside of it, they're somewhat less than human, less real. No one is above this.
I'm sure I'll get comments from people who think they are above it. "Fuck you, you inhuman monster! I value ALL human life equally!" Nah, no one does.
It's like this: which would upset you more, your best friend dying, or a dozen kids across town getting killed because their bus collided with a truck hauling killer bees? Which would hit you harder, your Mom dying, or seeing on the news that 15,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran?
https://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
Plenty of research out there, aside from what's included in the article. The author is mostly explaining Dunbar's Number.
This video does a good job breaking down the core of the truth of why and how altruism arises, and why not everyone is altruistic:
The reality is that evolution and the natural world does not care about individuals, or groups, or species. It is selecting for genes and genes dont give one flying fuck about anything other than whether they help more copies of themselves exist in the world. Sometimes that's altruistic, sometimes it's not.
Out of time for a video than long, but you can bet I saved it! Love examining how we hominids came to be, how we came to behave. So many arguments as to how we "should" act clash with how we "evolved" to act. Untangling "should" vs. "is" would take us farther than arguing about ideal behavior.
Aim for a better world keeping in mind as it is, not how it should be. Am drunk. Making sense?
You make valid points, but I feel the truth lies somewhere in between your comment and the people in the chain that you are responding to.
If the truth is in between, it's because we're arguing different things. I think everyone in this chain gets "it", but we're meandering a bit. Great conversation!
Some hate, at least reactionary hate to circumstances, is inherent in humans, otherwise it wouldn't be here.
Who taught us hate if not us?
Recharacterize hate and anger as fear, human behavior makes more sense.
Yeah, racism is taught, as OP's talking about, but fear of the other, the other outside our tribe, is genetic.
People take that opinion to mean racism is natural. Nope. It's not skin color, it's "other". It's a big world now, too big for us to easily parse, so we try to break each other into manageable chunks we can understand, skin color is an easy shortcut.
For example; I'm a middle-aged, American white guy. I understand, and am far closer, to my black friend down the street than I could be to any European, even one who looks exactly like me. My friend is in my tribe, my Monkeysphere, the European is not. Despite wildly different backgrounds, I share more in common with my friend than a random Spaniard. And if nothing else, he's close, literally and figuratively, part of my tribe. Does that make sense?
Yup. Prison experiment that went awry.
I forget the name. Basic textbook shit.
That experiment has been pretty thoroughly discredited.
I think the name is America. We became the dumping ground when Australia told England to get fucked.
Stanford
Ya. Thanks!
It's a powerful urge to say "the instincts I feel are not only universally felt by other 'good' humans, but also an indicator for truth" like some other ape believing something else won't make the same claim. It's an appeal to nature but nature does not give a shit about us. Morally, ethically, our survival. Nature does not define us anymore.
In fact, if you kill or severely maim someone, you’ll always feel conflicted about it if you are a good human
If someone you thought was a good person killed someone else - in self defence let's say - and didn't feel bad about it at all, would you then categorise that person as a bad person?
Eh, depends if they take the fact they did that seriously or not.
Empathy is a trait that almost all individuals of many mammal species possess. Lethal intra-species violence is also a behaviour observed in many (all, i'd guess) of those same species.
Individuals, their peers, their social networks, their identities, institutions and the specific situation all influence behaviour. When those line up one way, we do a murder. A different configuration and we do a cuddle.
It makes no sense to suggest that humans are either inherently good or bad - those are artificial concepts that don't even have a fixed meaning within a single human identity group. At the end of the day we're just organisms exhibit behaviours to meet needs.
I disagree. Someone doesn't return their shopping cart...? No remorse. No hesitation.
In war, most soldiers don't want to kill the enemy. And, many don't, they won't fire their weapon, they miss on purpose, etc.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hope_on_the_battlefield
Violence is natural.
Exhibit A: when my parents were busy, and we didn't have school (like during breaks or between school years, for example), they would leave me at home with my older brother, he constantly wanna fight me. (I mean, to be very clear, we are both real biological children of our parents, so this is not even some weird "othering" by biological vs adopted) One time, he got so mad that he just used zip ties to tie me up, and I was basically restrained until my parents got home. Another time my brother chased me out of the apartment, I felt so scared, I basically just ran from home, because I was not old enough to make rational decisions so "home = danger" was all I could think of.... That left me traumatized and I still think about it now.
HE NEVER APOLOGIZED. I confronted him years later and he still blamed me for it. I WAS NO OLDER THAN 7, he's 5 years older than me. Even my mother would blame me for that incident.
And even after that, he still fights me every so often. Zero remorse.
I just cannot trust anyone after that incident. Blood relatives betraying me. Unthinkable.
Oh is it surprising why I have depression and have nightmares about that place, a literal ocean away and nearly 2 decades later, still traumatized, and the perpetrator probably doesn't even remember what he did that day. Literally incapable of empathy.
I'm sorry that happened. I'm inclined to disagree with that first phrase, tho. The fact he has no empathy makes him not normal.
Apes together strong
PTSD would not exist
I don't think you know what PTSD is then