Are humans by default evil?

[Jason Voorhees]

From what I've read most psychologists reject the idea that humans are inherently evil. Like some people on this forum claim that humans are born killers or are born evil and that society suppresses them. Most humans are actually born with empathy because we are social creatures. Empathy and Group protection are hardwired into our DNA. Even babies show this but it's not good vs evil by default. Human mind is flexible and it all depends on the environment

The morality in most people comes out of survival not through the innate need for goodness. Most people are good because it is advantageous to themselves and eveyrone in the group but evolution left the backdoor open for evil. Epigenetic switches to turn the genes on or off based on environment

There are two very famous books that explore these ideas. The boy keeps the score and the murder that lives next door

The people who are pure evil like serial killers like ramirez become the way they do because of childhood trauma.

If a child is born into violence, the brain makes a grim calculation. This is a warzone. Empathy will get me killed. To survive, the abused child's brain actively shuts down its empathy centers and builds a wall. This is when the humanity and morality of the child dies. The mind sacrifices its own humanity to build indestructible armor and this is how people like ramirez, Dahmer, Bundy are born. 0 empathy, 0 remorse and 0 after thoughts, everything they do is out of pure malice because they have essentially lost the ability to be human.

 

[Dashie]

if by evil u mean selfish then yes bro, to survive, boost our egos etc etc.

 

[BeanCelll]

Self-serving above all else but not evil

 

[Throw_Away]

Humans are innately empathetic creatures, its advantegous in biology if individuals are willing to sacrifice themselves for the collective. Babies have been observed to have some level of empathy/morality. (idk if u mentioned all this dnr yet lol)

 

[exvh]

if by evil u mean selfish then yes bro, to survive, boost our egos etc etc.

Nice @Dashie

 

[Jason Voorhees]

Humans are innately empathetic creatures, its advantegous in biology if individuals are willing to sacrifice themselves for the collective. Babies have been observed to have some level of empathy/morality. (idk if u mentioned all this dnr yet lol)

I mentioned this in the thread babies have been shown to have empathy

 

[Jason Voorhees]

@imontheloose @Swarthy Knight @lnceIs @Jgns

 

[Throw_Away]

Most people are good because it is advantageous to themselves and eveyrone in the group but evolution left the backdoor open for evil.

Yes. Normally in primitive societies this would not be an advantageous trait, but life nowadays is very far from that and its become a super helpful trait to not have any kind of guilt/empathy, modern society is ruled by niggas like that after all

 

[Dashie]

View attachment 4935922

Nice @Dashie

my ass feeling like i js discovered the laws of physics

 

[imontheloose]

@imontheloose @Swarthy Knight @lnceIs @Jgns

the evil god hypothesis is probs the only valid reconciliation for theists or deists

 

[lnceIs]

Well you answered your own question in this thread

The morality in most people comes out of survival not through the innate need for goodness. Most people are good because it is advantageous to themselves and eveyrone in the group but evolution left the backdoor open for evil.



If a child is born into violence, the brain makes a grim calculation. This is a warzone. Empathy will get me killed. To survive, the abused child's brain actively shuts down its empathy centers

 

[Jason Voorhees]

Well you answered your own question in this thread

I was hoping people here would have more nuanced takes

 

[SilvioMoltisantiDan]

Interesting

 

[Jason Voorhees]

the evil god hypothesis is probs the only valid reconciliation for theists or deists

The standard 'free will' defense collapses when you belive that trauma physically alters brain chemistry and epigenetic switches.

 

[herculean]

From what I've read most psychologists reject the idea that humans are inherently evil. Like some people on this forum claim that humans are born killers or are born evil and that society suppresses them. Most humans are actually born with empathy because we are social creatures. Empathy and Group protection are hardwired into our DNA. Even babies show this but it's not good vs evil by default. Human mind is flexible and it all depends on the environment

The morality in most people comes out of survival not through the innate need for goodness. Most people are good because it is advantageous to themselves and eveyrone in the group but evolution left the backdoor open for evil. Epigenetic switches to turn the genes on or off based on environment

There are two very famous books that explore these ideas. The boy keeps the score and the murder that lives next door

View attachment 4935872View attachment 4935880

The people who are pure evil like serial killers like ramirez become the way they do because of childhood trauma.

If a child is born into violence, the brain makes a grim calculation. This is a warzone. Empathy will get me killed. To survive, the abused child's brain actively shuts down its empathy centers and builds a wall. This is when the humanity and morality of the child dies. The mind sacrifices its own humanity to build indestructible armor and this is how people like ramirez, Dahmer, Bundy are born. 0 empathy, 0 remorse and 0 after thoughts, everything they do is out of pure malice because they have essentially lost the ability to be human.

View attachment 4935909View attachment 4935910View attachment 4935911

I think to really try to understand this better we should look at examples of maximal good and maximal evil.
Saints and Serial Killers. In both situations I believe that there has been a conscious effort to bend one's will towards either end. For example with most serial killers they start off by torturing animals, etc. While, if you read the lives of some saints, they do a similar thing but the opposite, they will care for animals, go out of their way to help a homeless person, etc. There comes a turning point in both types of people where they give in fully into that path: renounce the material world and "ascend" to virtue, and "renounce" empathy (should look deeper into this) and "descend" into vice.

The question then becomes, which one is the maximal quality? As in, Is Evil just a lack of Good, or is Good just a lack of Evil. Think about it how we know Heat is the maximal quality, so in this case, cold is just a lack of heat (energy)

 

[imontheloose]

The standard 'free will' defense collapses when you belive that trauma physically alters brain chemistry and epigenetic switches.

free will is a big cope. u cant will wat u will.

 

[asdvek]

ramirez, Dahmer, Bundy

none of them are evil for killing

killing is not inherently evil its natural

 

[topology]

(I used whisper flow hence why some parts may look incorrect + AI-ish. I was spit balling here so I may be incorrect on some parts)

Humans, by default, are not evil. With the example of serial killers, I always wondered how much tolerance there should be for them. Since, at the age they are, most of them are in early adulthood or something of that sort, their personalities would be very static. How would we even fix it, because even if we fix it, it would still cause issues? Sure, they could be better, but at what point is it enough, basically? It would just be better to kill them as a whole for both our collective and theirs, or what?

To answer your question of whether humans, by default, are evil, I think no, because basically all of us now are just a product of our environment. We are just the way we are because of what we were fed. No one, at least us, I think, at our ages, could really change anything. Things could be changed at about 40 years old, obviously, or like 30 years old, but you can't really expect to be anywhere different, much, given the circumstances you are in as a young adult, for example. This applies to everyone here, obviously. If we're talking about 40-year-olds, they can be evil, but it just goes down to what we define as evil. If we were to take something like, let's say, murder is evil, then someone did it. If it's for no reason, then I think it is evil. Humans cannot inherently be evil because they don't have the mental capacity to be evil (as the soul would be damaged), and I think we can observe that as the older people get, the less violent the crime rates are. Like, teenagers are the ones that are the most, I'm pretty sure, like black teens, but going past that, it just shows that the older we get, the more our brains develop and the more wise we get. There's also maybe a factor of the older we get, the less our body gives to fighting and more to just living, you know, biologically.

It's very weird, and when empathy gets killed, it doesn't really get killed; it just builds a wall like you said. It could be fixed with enough reinforcement if done properly, but for psychopaths it basically never will be because they won't actually participate. This also goes back to the thing of where therapy won't be helpful for psychiatry for people who don't want it.

When you say zero empathy, everything they do is pure malice. I don't think that's fair. Everything they do is a survival mechanism. The reason they could kill, for example, Richard Ramirez; that's just an outlet to show that he's different, because he doesn't want to fit in with anyone because of how different he is, and he'd rather just blame other people than admit his own faults. I may be wrong about Richard Ramirez, but this is generally what I see with people who drift towards Satanism as teenagers // young adults.

Is it evil to kill if its for self defense? If not, then why is killing for the survival of ones ego? The ego rewrites reality to make you feel better about yourself as you most likely know.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

I think to really try to understand this better we should look at examples of maximal good and maximal evil.
Saints and Serial Killers. In both situations I believe that there has been a conscious effort to bend one's will towards either end. For example with most serial killers they start off by torturing animals, etc. While, if you read the lives of some saints, they do a similar thing but the opposite, they will care for animals, go out of their way to help a homeless person, etc. There comes a turning point in both types of people where they give in fully into that path: renounce the material world and "ascend" to virtue, and "renounce" empathy (should look deeper into this) and "descend" into vice.

The question then becomes, which one is the maximal quality? As in, Is Evil just a lack of Good, or is Good just a lack of Evil. Think about it how we know Heat is the maximal quality, so in this case, cold is just a lack of heat (energy)

There's an old saying in eastern philosophy. The Saint and the Savage are born twice, and die twice. One is physical, and the other is spiritual.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

none of them are evil for killing

killing is not inherently evil its natural

I already addressed this in the thread

 

[Jason Voorhees]

@SplashJuice @Kara

 

[herculean]

I think to really try to understand this better we should look at examples of maximal good and maximal evil.
Saints and Serial Killers. In both situations I believe that there has been a conscious effort to bend one's will towards either end. For example with most serial killers they start off by torturing animals, etc. While, if you read the lives of some saints, they do a similar thing but the opposite, they will care for animals, go out of their way to help a homeless person, etc. There comes a turning point in both types of people where they give in fully into that path: renounce the material world and "ascend" to virtue, and "renounce" empathy (should look deeper into this) and "descend" into vice.

The question then becomes, which one is the maximal quality? As in, Is Evil just a lack of Good, or is Good just a lack of Evil. Think about it how we know Heat is the maximal quality, so in this case, cold is just a lack of heat (energy)

I truly believe that humans are born good. This is more of a question of the metaphysical nature of the human soul. Analyzing the effects of one's upbringing and environment can only be done effectively if we come up with a metaphysical base to then build our further analysis from. This is because the essence (the metaphysical part of our nature) gives form (informs) the physical (the accidents).

Again, this is if you believe if we have a soul and that there is something transcendent to the physical

 

[asdvek]

I already addressed this in the thread

i wouldn't know cuz i didnt read the thread

btw ramirez bundy etc aren't "psychopaths" by definition

mfs see a killer and instantly think hes a psychopath

anyone can be a psychopath, it doesnt mean evil, they're just litle faggots who were abused as children

 

[imontheloose]

I think to really try to understand this better we should look at examples of maximal good and maximal evil.
Saints and Serial Killers. In both situations I believe that there has been a conscious effort to bend one's will towards either end. For example with most serial killers they start off by torturing animals, etc. While, if you read the lives of some saints, they do a similar thing but the opposite, they will care for animals, go out of their way to help a homeless person, etc. There comes a turning point in both types of people where they give in fully into that path: renounce the material world and "ascend" to virtue, and "renounce" empathy (should look deeper into this) and "descend" into vice.

The question then becomes, which one is the maximal quality? As in, Is Evil just a lack of Good, or is Good just a lack of Evil. Think about it how we know Heat is the maximal quality, so in this case, cold is just a lack of heat (energy)

none of them bc they arent physical properties lmao. if good were the lack of evil then the moon would be the devil incarnate and all the cruellest men be comparatively saints since at least theyve all done some good. this same thing occurs to the lack of good. theyre rubbish definitions as none exist.

 

[herculean]

There's an old saying in eastern philosophy. The Saint and the Savage are born twice, and die twice. One is physical, and the other is spiritual.

I couldn't agree more

 

[MagicalWaves]

From what I've read most psychologists reject the idea that humans are inherently evil. Like some people on this forum claim that humans are born killers or are born evil and that society suppresses them. Most humans are actually born with empathy because we are social creatures. Empathy and Group protection are hardwired into our DNA. Even babies show this but it's not good vs evil by default. Human mind is flexible and it all depends on the environment

The morality in most people comes out of survival not through the innate need for goodness. Most people are good because it is advantageous to themselves and eveyrone in the group but evolution left the backdoor open for evil. Epigenetic switches to turn the genes on or off based on environment

There are two very famous books that explore these ideas. The boy keeps the score and the murder that lives next door

View attachment 4935872View attachment 4935880

The people who are pure evil like serial killers like ramirez become the way they do because of childhood trauma.

If a child is born into violence, the brain makes a grim calculation. This is a warzone. Empathy will get me killed. To survive, the abused child's brain actively shuts down its empathy centers and builds a wall. This is when the humanity and morality of the child dies. The mind sacrifices its own humanity to build indestructible armor and this is how people like ramirez, Dahmer, Bundy are born. 0 empathy, 0 remorse and 0 after thoughts, everything they do is out of pure malice because they have essentially lost the ability to be human.

View attachment 4935909View attachment 4935910View attachment 4935911

jason voorhees

 

[lnceIs]

I was hoping people here would have more nuanced takes

That's like asking for the sum of 2+2, proposing it's 4, and then asking for more nuanced takes

Humans are not "evil" (=engage in destructive behavior like mass murder, having a total lack of empathy etc.) by default, because it's not beneficial for the survival of their genetics.

Therefore, humans that are "good" are more likely to pass on their genes, which leads to most humans being "good" (= posessing empathy) unless they grow up in an environment where it's a disadvantage for the survival of their genes.

That answers your threads' title, not sure what nuance one could add without it being unnecessary details, aka water

 

[herculean]

none of them bc they arent physical properties lmao. if good were the lack of evil then the moon would be the devil incarnate and all the cruellest men be comparatively saints since at least theyve all done some good. this same thing occurs to the lack of good. theyre rubbish definitions as none exist.

i have really tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and reread this over three times.
don't just spout nonsense for the sake of talking. this is one of the most braindead nonsensical comments i've read. your presuppositions don't even follow each other, let alone to your retarded conclusion

did you even read my whole post? literally takes less than a minute

 

[lnceIs]

Except us ethnics ofc, but we aren't fully hooman anyway

 

[d0wnpour_]

From what I've read most psychologists reject the idea that humans are inherently evil. Like some people on this forum claim that humans are born killers or are born evil and that society suppresses them. Most humans are actually born with empathy because we are social creatures. Empathy and Group protection are hardwired into our DNA. Even babies show this but it's not good vs evil by default. Human mind is flexible and it all depends on the environment

The morality in most people comes out of survival not through the innate need for goodness. Most people are good because it is advantageous to themselves and eveyrone in the group but evolution left the backdoor open for evil. Epigenetic switches to turn the genes on or off based on environment

There are two very famous books that explore these ideas. The boy keeps the score and the murder that lives next door

View attachment 4935872View attachment 4935880

The people who are pure evil like serial killers like ramirez become the way they do because of childhood trauma.

If a child is born into violence, the brain makes a grim calculation. This is a warzone. Empathy will get me killed. To survive, the abused child's brain actively shuts down its empathy centers and builds a wall. This is when the humanity and morality of the child dies. The mind sacrifices its own humanity to build indestructible armor and this is how people like ramirez, Dahmer, Bundy are born. 0 empathy, 0 remorse and 0 after thoughts, everything they do is out of pure malice because they have essentially lost the ability to be human.

View attachment 4935909View attachment 4935910View attachment 4935911

I'm not sure I'd say every human is born despicable or evil. I think human beings are born with a tendency towards it. I guess that might be a way around way of saying they are born evil though. Not sure.

 

[asdvek]

i cant even say what i feel cuz im beating my shit and its hard to type with one hand so yea

but ramirez or bundy werent psychopaths

idk about dahmer hes weird, nigga was gay and raped 30 men so i cant rlly speak for him

 

[Jason Voorhees]

none of them bc they arent physical properties lmao. if good were the lack of evil then the moon would be the devil incarnate and all the cruellest men be comparatively saints since at least theyve all done some good. this same thing occurs to the lack of good. theyre rubbish definitions as none exist.

This is moral nihilism. Good and evil aren't cosmic laws they are measurable
Good is the physical firing of mirror neurons, oxytocin, and prefrontal cortex activity.Evil isn't just a philosophica lack of good it is the measurable degradation of those neural pathways. Psychopaths in fMRI show this

 

[1966Ford]

Humans are evil if there's a reason to be evil..

 

[BR32]

I'm a strong believer in the idea that children are products of their environment.

Brain plasticity in childhood is so strong that traumatic events can permanently alter someones development and behavioral tendencies, empathy, drive etc.

Just grow up in a loving supportive home

Brutal

 

[imontheloose]

i have really tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and reread this over three times.
don't just spout nonsense for the sake of talking. this is one of the most braindead nonsensical comments i've read. your presuppositions don't even follow each other, let alone to your retarded conclusion

then ur a low-iq retard as expected. put ur dummy back in, ur drooling over ur keyboard.

 

[nobodylovesme]

most people who are born into violence just suffer from stress and other PTSD-tier symptoms. they don't become violent murderers 99% of the time. also people like Bundy (AFAIK didn't suffer much abuse) just have brains wired with psychopathic traits, so they automatically avoid social conditioning regardless of the conditions they were raised in (ofc, violence will increase the risk)

 

[imontheloose]

This is moral nihilism. Good and evil aren't cosmic laws they are measurable
Good is the physical firing of mirror neurons, oxytocin, and prefrontal cortex activity.Evil isn't just a philosophica lack of good it is the measurable degradation of those neural pathways. Psychopaths in fMRI show this

i am a moral nihilist. what makes them things good? oxytocin isnt itself good. something making u feel pleasurable or encouraging human continuation doesnt mean its good. a lack of good comparable to lack of energy is a stupid take from that newfag. would be crucified for that in any physics class.

 

[herculean]

(I used whisper flow hence why some parts may look incorrect + AI-ish. I was spit balling here so I may be incorrect on some parts)

Humans, by default, are not evil. With the example of serial killers, I always wondered how much tolerance there should be for them. Since, at the age they are, most of them are in early adulthood or something of that sort, their personalities would be very static. How would we even fix it, because even if we fix it, it would still cause issues? Sure, they could be better, but at what point is it enough, basically? It would just be better to kill them as a whole for both our collective and theirs, or what?

To answer your question of whether humans, by default, are evil, I think no, because basically all of us now are just a product of our environment. We are just the way we are because of what we were fed. No one, at least us, I think, at our ages, could really change anything. Things could be changed at about 40 years old, obviously, or like 30 years old, but you can't really expect to be anywhere different, much, given the circumstances you are in as a young adult, for example. This applies to everyone here, obviously. If we're talking about 40-year-olds, they can be evil, but it just goes down to what we define as evil. If we were to take something like, let's say, murder is evil, then someone did it. If it's for no reason, then I think it is evil. Humans cannot inherently be evil because they don't have the mental capacity to be evil (as the soul would be damaged), and I think we can observe that as the older people get, the less violent the crime rates are. Like, teenagers are the ones that are the most, I'm pretty sure, like black teens, but going past that, it just shows that the older we get, the more our brains develop and the more wise we get. There's also maybe a factor of the older we get, the less our body gives to fighting and more to just living, you know, biologically.

It's very weird, and when empathy gets killed, it doesn't really get killed; it just builds a wall like you said. It could be fixed with enough reinforcement if done properly, but for psychopaths it basically never will be because they won't actually participate. This also goes back to the thing of where therapy won't be helpful for psychiatry for people who don't want it.

When you say zero empathy, everything they do is pure malice. I don't think that's fair. Everything they do is a survival mechanism. The reason they could kill, for example, Richard Ramirez; that's just an outlet to show that he's different, because he doesn't want to fit in with anyone because of how different he is, and he'd rather just blame other people than admit his own faults. I may be wrong about Richard Ramirez, but this is generally what I see with people who drift towards Satanism as teenagers // young adults.

Is it evil to kill if its for self defense? If not, then why is killing for the survival of ones ego? The ego rewrites reality to make you feel better about yourself as you most likely know.

i like this analysis. high effort

 

[Tyler1]

i cant even say what i feel cuz im beating my shit and its hard to type with one hand so yea

 

[imontheloose]

i cant even say what i feel cuz im beating my shit and its hard to type with one hand so yea

but ramirez or bundy werent psychopaths

idk about dahmer hes weird, nigga was gay and raped 30 men so i cant rlly speak for him


View attachment 4936025

dahmer was the milwaukee cannibal. ate hearts, livers, and biceps. shame he didnt slip some rotten cow tongue in there but its ok.

 

[Hess]

I get what you are saying but how do you define good and evil in this sort of situation? unless you are religious i believe such concepts are mostly just social concepts to enforce normality in society and strengthen the ingroup

 

[asdvek]

dahmer was the milwaukee cannibal. ate hearts, livers, and biceps. shame he didnt slip some rotten cow tongue in there but its ok.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

This is moral nihilism. Good and evil aren't cosmic laws they are measurable
Good is the physical firing of mirror neurons, oxytocin, and prefrontal cortex activity.Evil isn't just a philosophica lack of good it is the measurable degradation of those neural pathways. Psychopaths in fMRI show this

I get what you are saying but how do you define good and evil in this sort of situation? unless you are religious i believe such concepts are mostly just social concepts to enforce normality in society and strengthen the ingroup

 

[Jason Voorhees]

View attachment 4936075

You'll probably have an easier time explaining CP than explaining these videos if someone gets hold of your phone.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

@Bryce @dhusc @TemporaryName @Yliaster

 

[asdvek]

You'll probably have an easier time explaining CP than explaining these videos if someone gets hold of your phone.

What if i gotta explain both

Nah but I had to crop a few parts of this edit cuz there was some weird faggot dahmer shit in it

 

[Jason Voorhees]

@AmericanSubhuman @ecstazy @davidlaidisme67 @Spike2010

 

[Daddy's Home]

The case of Beth Thomas in the video below speaks very well about this topic from the perspective of humans who can be bad ''by default'', if the environment is bad



Instead, often the opposite is true, as in the case below of Laura Brown for example, when people are born into large families, with good parents, with resources, with low cortisol levels, but who have to help each other, cooperate and very often give up their needs for the needs of others, being very empathetic and being prepared if necessary to put the safety and comfort of the group and community above their personal one, because they know that only in groups can they survive best and are the most comfortable

 

[dhusc]

From what I've read most psychologists reject the idea that humans are inherently evil. Like some people on this forum claim that humans are born killers or are born evil and that society suppresses them. Most humans are actually born with empathy because we are social creatures. Empathy and Group protection are hardwired into our DNA. Even babies show this but it's not good vs evil by default. Human mind is flexible and it all depends on the environment

The morality in most people comes out of survival not through the innate need for goodness. Most people are good because it is advantageous to themselves and eveyrone in the group but evolution left the backdoor open for evil. Epigenetic switches to turn the genes on or off based on environment

There are two very famous books that explore these ideas. The boy keeps the score and the murder that lives next door

View attachment 4935872View attachment 4935880

The people who are pure evil like serial killers like ramirez become the way they do because of childhood trauma.

If a child is born into violence, the brain makes a grim calculation. This is a warzone. Empathy will get me killed. To survive, the abused child's brain actively shuts down its empathy centers and builds a wall. This is when the humanity and morality of the child dies. The mind sacrifices its own humanity to build indestructible armor and this is how people like ramirez, Dahmer, Bundy are born. 0 empathy, 0 remorse and 0 after thoughts, everything they do is out of pure malice because they have essentially lost the ability to be human.

View attachment 4935909View attachment 4935910View attachment 4935911

I think it all depends on how you view morality, humans aren’t inherently evil and people here view it by the assumption exchanging something is supposedly wrong

everything has a value and an exchange, nothing doesn’t come from nothing, even within inanimate objects

 

[Jason Voorhees]

@mohito @Magnus Ironblood