Are Humans basically good?

^^^ Optimist.

I vote good.

I was on the treadmill at the gym a couple of weeks ago. I saw an old guy walk by and something dropped out of his bag. A few seconds later another guy came running by, stopped and picked up what old guy dropped and took off in a dead sprint to catch him. As far as he knew, no one was watching .

On a more serious note, a little girl in my area turned up missing a few weeks ago. Over 1,000 volunteers that never even met this little girl turned up to search the corn & bean fields in 90 degree heat. There were so many people wanting to help they had to turn people away. The bad of this story is really bad so I won't go there .

Absolutely...  No question about it.

I deal (and most people do) with many people every day.  Directly or indirectly.  Drive in traffic, shop in the same stores, deal with them on the phone...  It's RARE you have an issue with someone being a jerk and even rarer that someone commits a crime or violence against you.  I have traveled all over the world and NEVER had an incident or even saw one.

Shooting from the hip, I could say that 99.9% of our time on this planet is pretty much free from "bad", wouldn't you think?

If you took the opposing view and actually thought that if humans were basically "bad", wouldn't you be dealing with a-holes and violence and negative events almost all day/every day instead of the simple and peaceful coexistence that most of us live?

Like just about everything, the rare events or "bad apple" gets all the publicity.  Not the countless and immeasurable "none events" or good deeds, so people think the world is going to hell in a hand-basket based on a minority of events.

Here's my theory. Compared to now, the access to global news/information from the internet/TV was not available like it is today. Now, the easy/instant access to world wide media has the potential to create a virtual (viral) mob scene which often takes on a life of it's own. 

Because we log in/tune in (or stay logged/tuned in) we are spoon feed daily about stuff we don't necessarily need to know or hear. 
Personally, I love the internet for it's entertainment and resource function, but I feel that it's too easy a medium to promote negative, worthless propaganda, which I think creates the persona that humans are becoming worse with time.

I tend to agree that we are basically not "good". I think we all have to make a conscience decision to do the right thing. I think a lot of people can justify what they do as 'being good" but I am not sure that is the case.

I'd go into the "it's complicated" camp.

As was mentioned, you have to define what is good.  Good is a very subjective thing because my "good" is completely different than any of your "goods"

I'll try to not get too churchy here, but the Bible describes how we all have a sinful nature, where we're tempted to do bad things all the time.  Even if you take away the Bible part of it, people like to do bad things.  People speed, people cheat on their taxes, people spend all day on BT versus doing work.  (I've heard).

If your spouse or significant other could see through your eyes, would they approve of what you're looking at?
If your boss was watching over your shoulder, would he approve of what you're doing on the computer?
If the police were in your car, would they approve of how you're driving?

So as I mentioned, it all goes down to how you define good.  Many of you may not see any of the above examples as "bad" and that's perfectly fine.

I personally don't define good and bad at the levels of felony offenses.  If somebody cheats on his wife and ignores his kids, I'm not going to put them in the "good" camp because they haven't committed a crime.

Oh, and I also saw a study on TV a while back that came to the conclusion that kids were naturally bad and selfish out of the gate.  They then learned to be good through discipline and such.  It was on a 20/20 type show, but I can't remember who did the study.

It is a fun exercise to think about though.  In the western world, we're mostly isolated from the "real bad" in the world so it's easy to think that most people are good.

That question to me asks if people are inherently good or naturally bent toward being good. It is not whether or not people act good in normal daily interactions. It is at their core are they good? That is not fleshed out in a typical short societal encounter, which leads to my theory.

IMO people are inherently self interested, they don't naturally do good or naturally do bad, they do whatever they have determined to be in their best self interest. For most of us we desire some sort of societal interaction and thus it behooves ourselves to politely coexist and conform to societal norms to feed our need for acceptance, so in general we act good but it is not out of some natural bent toward good it is out of our own self interest. 

The other issue that comes into play is our own self image, which plays back into society. Do I want to be "that guy" who cheats on his wife, beats his kids, flips people off in traffic, is an a-hole in general? Or would I rather be liked and have influence over people and have people's respect? Whichever one considers to be the best route is what will dictate how they act. All it takes is for someone to decide society is not in their best interest and then you end up with a criminal, or a mass shooter or a suicide. All of these people have determined that society is not good for them and they either chose to leave it through incarceration or suicide or get revenge on it before they go. 

If you judge a person by their actions they would be judged inherently good right up to the point where they do something terribly tragic. How many mass shooters have we seen that were acting good, functioning in society, until they carried out their plan and were then deemed "evil". Were they not acting good and thus were good before this?

So no, I don't think people are good or bad, I think people are self interested and their desire's dictate their actions. 

This, exactly.

Good thread so far.  I will tend to agree, based off of the following:
https://www.google.com/#q=Definition+of+%22good%22.

I think first and foremost, people are survivors.  When they have everything they need for survival (define this as you will, whether it's basic necessities of life for some people, or a higher quality of life for others), and they will treat others well.  Get between them and what they view as necessary for survival, and their values change.

I consider myself as a good and honest person who follows the rules, but taken to extremes, I would steal food or hunt out of season if it was the only way I could eat or feed my family.

So is that another way of saying you are good as long as you canjustify it???

Do people draft in non-drafting events?  Is that good or bad?  Where one places the bar for good/bad has a lot to do with how one then views the population and individual's behaviours.  In my sheltered little corner of the world, drafting in a tri is bad and makes that person a cheater - bad bad bad.  But, if we were in a wartime scenario where people were dying, I wouldn't care so much about someone drafting, I think...

Very very very complex question (set of questions, really) and answers.

**Many** people's (most people's?) behaviour has a lot to do with in what environment they find themselves.  While moral relativism is a slippery slope, I can honestly (if unflatteringly) say that I would stretch a whole lot of rules/laws/norms to, for instance, protect the life of one of my kids (and by stretch, I'm saying shred).  Extreme example?  Yep.  Happen every day, all over the world?  Yep.  Sad fact.

In my day to day, I have the extreme luxury of being ABLE to decide to be "good" and honest at every turn that I can without risking the lives or well-being of my family.  Decisions like not drafting or cheating - ever. 

Plunk me down into a survival situation and I cannot honestly say that I'd be so steadfast.

Maybe I'm only a good person in a sheltered, first world setting.  Maybe I would still be "good" in a more Hobbsian existance, but I'm not so sure.

Just sayin'

Matt