Empathy

are you sure about that?

 

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one thing people tend to not include in their analysis of the world is the aspect of resonance of matter. This can play a huge part in the detection of patterns of energy that would otherwise be too small to notice.

for instance, waves in large bodies of water. Waves are caused by wind hitting the surface of the water, in combination with a large number of other factors (such as tides, etc). Wind, however has the most noticable effect. The thing to note here is that the wind hitting the surface of the water creates only a barely noticable ripple. It not the single instance that is important - small ripple by itself will quickly recede back into calm water; it is the repitition of the causing event- the contact of wind on water- in the right intervals that is important. Water has a certain speed at which it moves, and if the wind hits the surface at the right speed, the resonace of the water is reached, and these small ripples add up. Suddenly, you have 17 foot tall waves off the coast of California.

Just because each firing of a nueron creates a really tiny EM effect, the frequency and amplitude of that EM could very well create "waves" that are substantially more powerfull than each nueron's effect on it's own. There is not enough research in the area to really 'know' one way or the other if these waves exsist, and/or if people would be able to suconsiously detect or react to them.

300 years ago, most educated, intelligent people in Europe were sure that the sun revolved around the earth...
100 years ago, most educated, intelligent people in America were sure that matter and energy were two very different things.
10 years ago, most educated, intelligent people in the world were sure that the speed of light in a vaccuum was always constant.

All of these 'sure' things have been called into question- the first two have long since become the foolishness of the past, and the last one is now seriously coming into question in a similar fasion.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0130/p14s03-bogn.html

 

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Raven, me and you have the same way of feeling that. I don't just feel there emotions, there emotions sort of, come inside me, like if I see a boy that's sitting alone, I can FEEL his vibes, and it makes me really forlorn.

Like this one kid, who has MAJOR family problems, and psychological problems, I get SO sad around him, because he's always sad.

I'm always studying everyone. I can hear there thoughts practically, beacsue it's like they become a part of me, everyone I meet becomes a part of my, emotionally and pychically.

I used to be extremely antisocial, and I still kinda carry that trait, but I gave myself therapy by doing psi.

If someone, even someone I've never met before, is sad, I can feel the pain, like someone is crushing me from the inside, and I can feel the tears and emotions welling up inside me, and I want so much to comofrt them.
Also, when I hear a sad song, it's almost painful to listen to it.

I can pick up a lot of things with my head, I'm like a human radio. I can hear peoples thoughts. Not sentences, but thoughts like, feelings, just little sparks.

I can do it with an actual radio too. I here little bits and peices of songs and when I turn on my radio, the song is on. I DO live by a rdio tower though, I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

 

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In Lak'ech

The mayan way of greeting... I'm you.
everyone and everything in essence one.
And since we have mind and body maybe thats why some people are empathic? We all give off "vibes" and we "feel" thru it maybe? I'm just wondering about it cuz I'm empathic. In more that one way.

 

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993611

it seems we do in fact have magnetic bits in our brains! I didn't even know that for sure. cool.

 

phyllus

Banshee

I had an out of body experience while dreaming. I was dreaming that I was flying around the ceiling of my room looking down on my sleeping form while looking up at myself hovering around the top and
corners of the ceiling. I was only 17 and it scared me kind of so I've never tried it again.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

Yep, im guilty of being very empathic also, i wont eat meat or even kill insects anymore!

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Emotions are an incredibly powerful aspect of ourselves, i actually think emotional thought can be better understood as a way of visceral thinking. I think people should be taught and trained to develop emotional thinking ever bit as much as logic and reasoning.
Some people would gain an awful lot from lessons in empathic thinking.

 

Mirror neurons. But some would say, Empathy doesnt exist. Unless you see it, assume it doesnt.

 

Emotions are our biggest weakness.

Emotions cannot be taught. People are born with an emotional spectrum, it's decided and determined by genetics, by the time the baby is born, it already has it's emotional spectrum. This means if its ever going ot feel empathy, it's going to feel it within the first few years of life, and if it does not feel it then, it's never going to develop it.

What emotional people fail to understand is that not everyone has the same emotions as them. Not everyone can feel empathy. So when you talk about training and teaching and all that crap, it does not work that way. You cannot teach a person to feel something, they either have the instinct or they don't, trying to act like you can teach it is like trying to teach a homosexual to go straight, you cannot.

So instead, emotional people need to figure out how to shut off or adapt to the world in a way which allows them to deal with people who are of the exact opposite emotional spectrum as them. If you have empathy, you need to learn to deal with people who have no empathy. If you love, you need to learn to deal with people who hate.

Empathy is not universal, some people will have no remorse for you, ever, no empathy, ever, and no love, ever. Accept it and adapt.

 

I saw something recently that proposed that empathy is a response brought about by our basic nature as a group-oriented animal. The group needs to have a good degree of conformity to survive, and a person who is particularly "empathic" is actually picking up on subtle clues in the environment as to how someone else, or even a room full of people, is "feeling" (such as when a person is anxious they appear tense and may fidget quite a bit), but more subtle. Without thinking about it, as when we sympathize with a friend who is going through a rough time, we respond in kind to the nearly imperceptible cues we're getting from the people we observe. Without an immediate definitive source for the feeling, most tend to ascribe it to something paranormal. But if they really studied the people they were around, they might be able to see what's making the respond the way they are.

I really wished the whole show had been about empathy because I would have liked to have seen some experiments, but it was more of a general interest symposium on behavioral therapy for back pain.

 

If you learn to harness them they can be your biggest strength!

True, but i think youre talking about a small minority, even a high number of people with autism/aspergers/bpd's are able to empathise.
Its actually pretty rare to not feel any empathy whatsoever, but youre right if theres nothing there initially of course theres nothing to develop. But with most people there is.

I think you misunderstand me, im not talking about training sociopaths to care, im talking about training people who have problems (not a complete inability) conceptualising someone elses circumstances/feelings to conceptualise better.
Case in point, im genetically predisposed to be absolutely terrible at mathematics, i mean really terrible, no natural flair for it atall.
But by working on it at school i was able to excersise that part of my mind so that i wasnt actually half bad at it.
There are probably even people on this forum with severe dyslexia who you wouldnt even guess they had it, simply because they worked at developing their writting.
Our mental handicaps/inabilities can provably be developed to a much higher functional level through proper training.

Agreed, but youre talking about the absolute extreme end of the spectrum - outright sociopaths with a genetic predisposition to complete self-absorbtion, im not.

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Hate and fear are stronger than love. Emotions are not a strength for humanity even if you think it's a strength for individuals.

How many people do you know, who you have personally seen empathy from?

In prison populations, 20% show no remorse and no empathy. I admit thats not the majority, but thats 20%, it's a lot of people.

Not as rare as you think. Like I said, it's about 20%. Rapists show no empathy, or remorse because they have none. Murderers, at least the kind of murderers who aren't doing it in self defense, also have none. And there are plenty of business men who don't care about you at all and have no empathy for you, or anyone poor. You can make the case that the majority of people feel empathy, but you also have to admit that many people you know, don't feel empathy, in fact you likely have family members who don't, friends who don't, and work with people who don't. 20% is a lot of people. This is assuming that the prison population which is 20%, is relatively the same as the general population, considering we don't have the ability to track what everyone does in the general population like we can in prison.

I don't know what empathy problems you are talking about. People either have it or they don't.
If they have it, they don't need your education, they'll learn from experiences. If they treat you without empathy, try treating them without empathy, thats how they'll learn. Experience.

Math is an instinct, empathy is an instinct, but math skills are a skill, and display of empathy is a skill. You can become better at the display and application of empathy but it still requires you to have the instinct to feel it. So what you are talking about is training people to apply empathy more often and to follow their instincts.

The problem is, empathy is not something everyone will understand if you decide to give it to the world, and secondly, not everyone will respect or care how you feel towards them or others. So the display becomes more of an acting game, whats the point?

There is a difference between mental handicaps, and the inability to display and communicate emotions. You can feel empathy and simply not be good at displaying it, I'm like that myself, and yes you can learn to display it.

What you don't want to be confused about is the actual teaching of empathy. Empathy is an instinct, you arent talking about strengthening the feeling itself, you are talking about strengthening the active display of it, you are talking about

"Person A feels empathy and commits to action X"
instead of "Person A feels empathy, yet ignores it and is unable to commit to action X".

People learn to ignore their empathy as a survival mechanism. You cannot afford to share empathy with everyone. In the end, empathy is just an emotion like all the others, the world does not care about how you feel towards it, and unless people actually care about you, they will not care what you are feeling unless it's for selfish reasons.

It's not a handicap. Actually most men feel empathy but do not display it very well. This is just how men are trained to be, and a reaction to a harsh environment. Do you expect a soldier on a battle field to stop to feel empathy or feel whats going on? Of course not. Of course you cannot expect a common man to trust his instincts when there is so much risk involved. In the end, even if a lot of men feel empathy, critical decisions are not made based on empathy or instincts, critical decisions are made based on success or failure, and based on results and consequences. You might feel like saving someones life, but if your life is too important and you don't want to risk your life to do it, you still did the right thing because the main concern any human has is to protect themselves, empathy and all other emotions come second to that instinct.

I never called you a psychopath or sociopath. I'm saying some people follow their emotions and some don't. It's not simply a matter of if you feel empathy or not, it's also, do you trust your emotions or not?

I'd say a lot of people have lost the ability to trust their emotions. Instincts are not to be trusted. Trust your brain first and your heart second, thats how it works.

The world is just, too dangerous to be free emotionally, so everyone is basically either being fake emotionally, or being real in a limited way.

Example, men don't cry in public, it's weak. Men also don't show a lot of empathy, it's weak. Sure you can feel it, but if you feel it to the point where you cannot function as a person, in specific as a man, then it's your weakness.

Any emotion you have can become a weakness if you let it consume you. So while it's good to be able to feel something, it's not good to always act on it.

 

I dont think you can ever genuinely guage the strength of love/hate as opposing emotions, id personally try to steer clear of making such statements.

Where are you getting these figures from?

Woahhh there, youre making really broad blanket statements that have no real basis in fact. You cant say all rapists/murderers have no empathy or unable to show empathy, because well, it isnt true.

Ive never known any person to be completely devoid of emotion to be quite honest, ive known people whove shown barely any empathy, but they still could be empathic in certain situations.
The thing is there are different degrees of empathy and compassion, you simply cant label a businessman who gets rich off the backs of poverty and misery as having no empathy. As its quite likely he will have loved ones who he cares very much about and would be devastated if anything bad happened to them.
I think you really have to be aware of how someone inter-relates towards a wide range of people in various instances to really get an accurate picture of where theyre at empathically.

I think youre looking at empathy as a feeling which is entirely detached from the rest of our psyche, this really isnt the case. If empathy as a feeling can neurologically occur within a person (and we've established it is very rare that it cannot) then what we're really looking at is ways in which that emotion can potentially be triggered.
Empathy is useally triggered by the ability to conceptualise or artificially place your self into someone elses experience.
Its this that some people either simply forget to do, dont allow themselves the time to do, or have problems achieving.
I really cant see any reason why the conceptualisation of another's situation couldnt be worked apon and developed such as virtually any other aspect of ourselves can.

Well i wouldnt say theyre instincts, i useally think of self-survival/procreation as instincts but yes i know what you mean, one needs to be able to feel it in the first place in order to do anything with it.

Im not sure i really understand what you mean here to be honest, im not trying to abstractly give empathy to anyone. I just think emotions can be ignored so that they lie stagnant and of no beneficial use, or they can be developed so as to create a more well-rounded humanbeing.

Thats a good point actually, there are obviously constructive and non-constructive ways for appreciating empathy as an emotion.
Simply showing empathy isnt really of any use to anyone, but rather using it as a driving force to create change for the better is.

Not really, im talking about acknowledging the emotion and working on the conceptual triggers, as i said constructive action based on the emotion is more important than being able to show the emotion to others.

Yes of course you cannot be empathic to somone who (for instance) has a gun to your head, that would obviously be counter-productive.
Im not suggesting we all feel empathy 24/7, just as i wouldnt suggest we feel any other emotion all the time.
As for people only ever acting for selfish reasons, that is clearly untrue. I could list thousands of things that people do and have done for others at the expense of themselves.

People do self-sacrifice from time to time sometimes at the cost of their own lives, so clearly we can make virtually any emotion/drive the primary motivator if we so wish.

Well again, emotions arnt instincts theyre how we judge our external and internal landscape. Emotions cannot be trusted 100% though no, neither can logic and reason, your non-emotional logic is ever bit as likely to get you into trouble and lead you down the wrong path as emotions are. Both parts of our psyche are inherently falible, no getting away from it.

 

Sure you can, just look at history, what emotions actually mobilized people? Fear? Hatred? sure, but people who love, what do they do? Once again, I'm saying rely on history as a guide, don't be such a hippie.

Stop being a clueless hippie.

If your are forcing yourself on someone, but you are capable of feeling empathy, when she starts crying and screaming, you'll stop, because you'll have felt empathy. If you don't feel empathy, or compassion, or remorse, not only will you not stop, but you'll brutally go through with the act with no regard for her as a person. This is how you know, that rapists do not feel remorse, it's not the sorta crime that you can commit by accident, no one can rape someone else accidently, just like no one can torture someone else and say they feel empathy and remorse afterwards. If you are naive enough to believe that someone can torture a woman or man(rape is like torture), then believe them when they say they feel guilty about it, then you are being an empathic fool. Don't follow your emotions, follow the facts, what crime did they commit, and explain how someone can commit compassionate rape, because if you can't, then it proves rape is not a crime of compassion, but a crime of force, of hatred, of torture, and it's the sorta crime that cannot be done by accident so theres no way a person can be remorseful and have it be taken seriously.

You obviously are not paying close attention to people. This is why you believe in the empathic rapist, or believe that serial killers can be fixed or taught to feel remorse. It never works that way, either a person feels remorse and will never really make a very good rapist or serial killer, or they don't and will rape and kill with ease. If you feel empathy or remorse, and you rape and kill an innocent person, the question is, how exactly did you get yourself to commit the action if you actually feel empathy or remorse? There is a difference between feeling empathy and remorse, and just acting out the role, and it seems you don't know the difference between acting and actual feelings. Someone who actually feels empathy could never commit rape, and never murder an innocent person, because they'd be overwelmed by empathy at the last moment.

Prove there are degrees. How exactly do you measure an emotion? Unless you can measure it, how can you prove they have it at all? It's an emotion, if someone hates, you have no way to know how much, or how many, all you know is thats what they feel. It's impossible to measure emotions. So if someone has no empathy, they CAN commit rape, they CAN murder random people, they CAN do a lot of things. I'm not saying that people with empathy, can't kill, or can't profit off of others, they just do it for different reasons.

A person who feels empathy, and who feels love, will kill in self defense, to protect themselves and their family, they will profit in self defense, to protect themselves and family, but they won't do these things for pleasure. Rape is the sorta torturing act that ONLY people without empathy and remorse can commit. What rational reason is there to ever rape someone? Like I said, empathy does not exist until it's shown. You can believe whatever you want about the inherent goodness of people, or the just world, but the reality is that you just don't know a person until you know them, you don't know if they have empathy or not, and you cannot pretend like you know just because you want them to have it. You also cannot precisely measure it, all you can do is know if a person has it or not, you cannot measure it down to the amount because there are no limits to emotions, this depends entirely on moods. They have the capability or not.

A person such as this, if they are a businessman, is making the rational decision, they are profiting off of the poor because they love their family enough to do anything to protect them. This is not the same as choosing to "screw" the poor because you hate the poor and enjoy screwing people. Some people don't have families and STILL spend their lives hating the poor, what about these people? What about the business men who are so corrupt that they bankrupt the entire company? See the world for how it is, not for how you want it to be. There is a lot less empathy than you seem to think. Sure most people have it, but a lot don't.

We are not talking about children here, or teenagers. It's not important where they are at unless you are their friend and they are trying to understand themselves. An adult either has empathy or they don't, you are not going to take someone with no empathy and teach them empathy. You are not going to be able to take someone with empathy and make them act more empathetic. Sometimes acting empathetic is irrational, and the perfect example is in the case of business. Yes it's important to care about the poor, but if you have to choose between your family and the poor, you'll choose your family over random faceless strangers.

It's not something that can be triggered in all people. In most people yes, but not in all. So instead of worrying about how to trigger it, worry about how to apply it to people in innovative ways. Figure out how to show people you have it. I think you seem to view empathy as something which turns on and off, it does not work that way, if you have empathy, it's always on, you always have empathy for a fellow human, and you learn to develop it for animals, it's just always there and you always feel it, even when you are forced to ignore it. This would mean a person who is in the business of screwing the poor, will show signs of doubt, disinterest, concern, or just uncomfortable about how they make money. This is their limited expression of empathy. The person who enjoys screwing the poor, thats a different person.

I know what empathy is. So explain to me how a rapist, who is raping a person can feel empathy.

You cannot forget an emotion. Have you ever forgot to love your mother? Most people will love their mother until they day they die, this is assuming they have a good mother. If a person who has empathy tries to rape a woman, they'd eventually see it as raping their mother, because thats ultimately what it boils down to, and a person with empathy just won't be able to do that to any woman, because women are mothers, well, anyway you get the point.

All I'm saying is that it cannot be taught.

Yes, people will kill to survive, people will rip off the poor to survive, but whats that have to do with rape or torture? Thats the difference. No one rapes to survive, at least as far as I know.

Even when you ignore emotions you still feel them, it still hurts, it's going to hurt you to commit any act of violence, even if you kill in self defense it's not like you'll feel good about it later on, even if you get rich, it's not like you won't feel like you need to give back some day, or like you owe some people. It's just how it is, you'll feel guilt even when your actions are justified.

We agree on something. Empathy is not something to be "displayed". It's an emotional drive to be used. Now you get it. It's like all the other emotions, it never matters if you display it or not, only what actions you take matter.

Exactly.

Even if you feel it 24/7, you can't always follow what you feel, you can't trust you emotions. Thats what I'm saying.

I never said people only act for selfish reasons. I said self defense is the most important thing, more important than the other emotions. You have to protect yourself if you want to be around to love others.

Who says that is rational?

Emotions are instincts.

I never said anything about paths. Sometimes emotions are better, like for deciding a path to happiness, but emotions do not make correct decisions for all situations. You have to understand, if you face a situation where you have to defend yourself, suddenly your emotions don't matter, you don't have the option to feel anymore, it's officially shut off as you put survival as the main priority. Afrer you survive then you can feel all the pain and remorse you have to feel, but you have to survive. This means someone will kill, and even cannibalize the body to survive, and then worry about how bad they feel about doing it later on, when they are safe and secure. Sure they might be fucked up emotionally afterwards, but thats how life is.

What if you are in a situation where all the solutions feel terrible, where nothing feels right, where there are no good options, and where every option will hurt many many people, in this situation you no longer have the freedom to feel your options out, you have to navigate completely on logic because at that point feeling won't help anymore. In fact, in a lot of the time, you'll get no where following your feelings, havent you been burned by a female yet? havent you been backstabbed by a friend yet? havent you lost something because you werent willing to do anything to protect it?

If you want to protect what you have, if you love what you have, you'll do anything it takes to defend what you have, even if you feel empathy, you'll still do anything it takes to defend what you have because all your emotions are contained in what you have, and you'll feel more pain losing what you have than you'll feel protecting it. Thats rational, you protect yourself, you protect your family, you do whats in your best interest and your families best interest, everyone else is on their own.

So you see? You protect yourself. You protect your family as you protect yourself. Because you'd kill to protect yourself, of course you'd kill to protect your family, that makes your family, a major part of yourself. You may feel empathy for other people, but you don't KNOW them, or they won't let you KNOW them, so you cannot take them seriously, and if you cannot do that, you cannot put yourself and your family at risk by trying to protect people you don't know, unless it's your job or you are some sorta hero.

I know some people are willing to die protecting their country, and save lives of complete strangers, these are heros, a rare breed. The average person protects their family. Some people don't even protect their family.

So do you see the situation? logic wins over emotion in the short term, because in order to be good with tactics you need logic. What are you going to do if someone breaks into your house, and you are the only thing standing in the way of this person from raping your wife and kids and killing them? Of course you are going to shoot the person if you have a gun, because you won't have a choice.

That's logic. It's not because you don't feel empathy for them.But if someone puts you in a situation where your only option is to fight them, empathy shuts down, your fear will be stronger than your empathy. Fear is stronger than love.

 

Ive not bothered to read beyond the first 2 paragraphs of your posts, if youre going to invent made up statistics on the spot, and repond by calling someone a hippy when asked to supply a source then you really are wasting my time.
Ive tried to be patient with you but you really dont have even the most fundamental understanding of simple concepts such instinct, emotion, and paradigms, and youve mixed them all up consistantly throughout the conversation.
I also dont think youre anyway near mature enough or familiar with psychology in general to understand that people can act with a complete lack of empathy (rape, murder) and also act altruistically at another given time or even express genuine sorrow at past misdeeds.
It may suprise you to know that a local man to where i live was recently charged with the rape of a young girl, and shortly before sentencing rescued a couple of small infants from a burning building at the risk of his own life.
I find it staggering that you cant understand that human beings are highly complex creatures capable of various forms of behaviours which arnt always consistant.
To argue otherwise is to condem people as either 'good' or 'evil' and to throw away hundereds of years of progress in the fields of psychology/philosophy.
Try telling any psychologist (even a student) that rapists and murderers cannot feel compassion or empathy and i can garantee they will laugh in your face. People compartmentalise their moral selves and create moral-loop holes which make it ok to commit terrible acts. It doesnt mean they dont have empathy, more offen than not theyve simply placed a block on any compassionate feelings in relation to specific situations. Its how soldiers are able to kill on the battlefield but dont as civilians, its how racists rationalise killing blackpeople, but wouldnt dream of harming a air on the head on a white person, its how you love your pet and wouldnt dream of hurting it but will quite happily sit down and eat a small mammal not that different from the one you are so affectionate about.
Its really really basic human psychology, i really recommend you buy a book sometime to full get to grips with these aspects of the human psyche.
Ive also explained about 3 times that i am not suggesting that people without empathy (sociopaths) can magically be taught to be emphatic. But you are still atempting to argue with me as if i am. I really not entirely sure if youre playing dumb for some kind of comedic effect, but either way im not going to spend all day re-explaining very simple things over and over again. Only for you to misunderstand and carry on arguing against a position that i do not even hold.

I got the impression early on that you were way out of your depth, its probably my fault for atempting to converse with you on terms that are obviously far beyond your grasp.

 

People are judged by their past misdeeds, not the silly words that come out of their mouth. If a person has raped in the past, no matter what words they say, I'm still going to believe they will rape in the future. I don't think empathy is the type of thing that shuts on and off, if it does, then it isnt real empathy.

You look in prison, you have guys there who are doing life, many of them are honest about it, they don't feel remorse and they proudly say so. Then you have others who try to fake empathy, even when they are just as guilty.

Just because they say they arent guilty, and feel sorry for what they did, it does not mean everyone is going to be a complete sucker and fall for it. Someone can torture your daughter and then say they are sorry, they didnt mean it?! If they did it, they meant it. People are what they do. Rapists rape people, and no I do not think rape is the kind of crime that can be reformed.

Exactly, I view people as good and evil. I discriminate, so what? You have to judge character somehow.

This does not mean he could feel empathy. Maybe he believed he was going to hell and did it for selfish reasons, like to save his soul, or to look good in public. Empathy is not the same as doing good deeds. People with no empathy do good deeds, I never said they were not capable of good deeds. I said being capable of feeling empathy, means that they will not be able to commit the act in the first place, because THEY WILL feel empathy in the process of commiting the act. How exactly do you torture someone who is crying, screaming, begging for their life, a child in fact, and expect anyone to believe you have empathy? Prisoners don't like child molestors, and there is a reason for it, it's because even in prison it is known that this sort of criminal displays no empathy.

It does not change the fact that certain kinds of actions and crimes, show a complete lack of empathy. If you can rape someone, or torture someone, you have no empathy. Sure you can rescue someone later on, or save a life later on, but empathy is what keeps people from raping and torturing others for pleasure. A person can be capable of remorse but not capable of empathy, you are confusing remorse with empathy. Doing a good deed right after doing a bad deed is an act of remorse, but doing the bad deed means a lack of empathy.

So? There is a good and evil. It's based on how a person treats others. If you do evil shit all the time, then yes you are evil, it's really that simple. You can try to blur the lines between good and evil all you want, but if someone were to rape you, or your daughter, or your mother, or someone you care about, you'd see them as evil, period. You'd throw all your philosophy and psychology out the window and see them as a monster, and of course if they treat you like a monster, why wouldnt you see them that way? Is it unnatural to see reality?

Stop making excuses and admit that you are soft on crime, and soft on criminals. There is no moral confusion. If you know rape is wrong, if you can see the person crying and begging you to stop, but you continue, you are simply unable to feel empathy. I cannot think of a better situation where someones empathy would be triggered, how exactly can someone commit rape by accident? Tell me how this could ever happen and then I'll believe rapists can feel empathy, because rape is the sorta crime which I don't think can happen by accident. And I know for a fact not everyone could do it, I could never rape a person, I don't have that kinda heart. I also don't torture animals for fun, I don't enjoy raping and torturing stuff because I know animals can feel pain, and that is empathy, it's that simple. The rapist knows the victim can feel pain, and knows the victim is being harmed, especially if the victim is crying and begging them to stop, if they know they are causing unnecessary pain to an animal, ANY animal, and they actually ENJOY doing it, to the point where they rape, thats lack of empathy, period. I don't think you can have a better display of it, it's the perfect situation. It's not morally confusing like murder, it's torture, it's rape.

Sure, show me how to block any emotion, have you ever been able to do it? I know I can't. Sure I might not act according to my emotions all the time, but I cannot block the feeling of it. So, if rape were a rational act then I could understand why someone would have to block their compassion for a moment so they could rape a person, but really, when is rape ever a neccessary act? Do you have to rape people to survive? Do you win a million dollars for each rape? It's not like there are businesses set up where people are paid to rape each other. Also if a person does have empathy, and they do rape, they usually commit suicide or turn themselves in, they don't deny it or claim not guilty, then get convicted and proven guilty.

Anyone can kill in self defense. Soldiers kill because they are on a battlefield where everyone is trying to kill them. They kill out of fear of being killed. This is not the same as why people rape. Rapists arent in danger of being killed if they don't rape and torture the victim. People kill out of fear. I don't know what racism has to do with this subject. I don't think racism is rational, it's religious in nature, so it's different, but as far as I know there is no religion that teaches that we must rape people. There might be religions which commit ritual suicide, or murder, and the reasons why black people or any people are hated, are emotionally driven (hate, fear), and religious in nature, not rational. It's only rational if that same person dislikes all people equally, then it's rational.

Unless the white person is a black person? How do you know this? Are you saying you'd trust Charles Manson not to harm you because he is white and his religion says he shouldnt? If someone can brutally murder one person, they can brutally murder any person, it's rational to treat all people as human period. If you want to try to bring religion into it (race), to defend your arguement, I think it's a weak arguement. I don't view the world in race, I view it in good and evil. If someone acts evil, thats what they are, and it's based on how they treat others, this means other humans, animals, etc.

It does not matter what excuses they have for commiting the acts. People think of reasons for why they do it after they decide they feel like doing it, and you'll never know. Someone can kill a group of people in a brutal fashion, and then say God told them to do it. Are you going to say these people are lying? No, they might really believe God told them to do it, but from your perspective what difference does it make?

I see you are just soft on crime, you are consistant on this. You also believe in religious dogma to the point where you cannot seperate good from evil, so anyone can do anything to you and you'll treat them the same. This is the flaw in your worldview, anyone can do anything to you, or anyone around you, and you'll treat them the same. How exactly do you judge character if you have these soft views?

To me theres no difference. If you eat meat, you should be prepared to kill what you are eating. If you aren't, perhaps you should change your diet.

I stopped eating red meat because of empathy. I thought about it, I'm not the sorta person who would enjoy hunting mammals. So it's simple, if you feel bad about killing mammals, change your eating habits, because guess what, that cow you are eating, had to suffer, and their suffering is NO DIFFERENT from your pets. Their pain is NO DIFFERENT.

Just because I don't agree with your opinion, it does not mean I have not read books. I've read books. I've taken classes in psychology, I've read books, and I know people who have been in prison. What you are saying, is that all these people who routinely torture animals for fun, rape, and murder for fun, actually are filled with empathy and remorse. Well their actions do not reflect it at all, and thats all anyone outside of themselves has to go on. People are not going to listen to psychobabble, people are going to look at how a person acts because in the end, thats all that matters, actions.

Words don't matter, people will do something and then say anything as an excuse for why they did it.
It's really simple, there are some things that you should just never do. If you want to keep a good reputation, or if you just want to not be considered evil, there are some actions that you should never commit. If you rape a person, it's an evil act, there is nothing good or righteous about rape. Murder, ok, some people kill to protect others, this is not the same as rape, rape and torture accomplish absolutely nothing, protects absolutely no one, and harms everyone.

Sociopaths feel no empathy or remorse. I don't care if you are a sociopath or not. It's not about psychological classification, or terms. It's about how you treat people. If you treat people in an evil way, people will view you as evil, it's that simple. If you treat people in a good way, people will view you as good. The world should and must judge people by their actions towards other people, the environment, and themselves. People will discriminate, and judge character, so it's not going to matter what you say, or what we call you or label you, if you go and rape someone, or if you like torturing animals, all the years of philosophy and psychology get thrown out the window, and you become evil.

I don't understand your position. How are you going to judge character if you have no concept of good and evil? Of course you do. There are types of treatment, that if someone did it to you, you'd instantly see them as evil, you can try and say theres no good and evil all you want, but your actions and your responses will show. Like I said, if someone raped someone you cared about, would you still be this soft on crime, or would you finally admit that the rapist is evil for commiting the act of rape? If the rapist goes to court, says they are sorry, and cries in public is it really going to change your mind after they commited that act?

I'm guessing, for most people, there are certain actions that they consider evil, that they just do not tolerate. Where do you draw the line? Or do you try to rationalize and understand every act that every human has ever commited without ever admitting that evil exists?

I know about sociopaths, psychopaths, bipolars, narcissists, and any other psychological type. What you psychologists don't seem to understand is, it doesnt matter what type a person is. What matters is how they are living. You can be a sociopath or psychopath and still know not to commit rape. You can also have a concept of good and evil, and know right from wrong. Psychology does not prevent crime, the police do.

You can research psychology, you can read as many books as you want, but when someone is trying to rob, rape, or harm you, it's not going to matter anymore what psychological term you apply to them, that entity becomes a monster in your mind, that entity becomes evil based on the act it is commiting against you. Evil is based on actions, not psychology.

Rape is an act of evil. Torture is an act of evil. There is no way to justify these actions, because they serve no rational purpose whatsoever. To try to justify them, as many academic psychologists attempt to do, is to attept to justify evil.

Instead of focusing on how to justify it, or on how to understand it, why not just focus on recognizing it when you see it. If you cannot recognize evil when you see it, you won't even be able to respond.

Take those priests who are raping kids, thats evil. A psychologist would come up with a complicated name for the disorder the priest has, and all these medical terms, but really, to be simple, it's evil. I know it's evil, so do you. It's not that the priest is born evil, the priest is born with the capability to commit evil acts, perhaps due to lack of empathy, which reduces inhibitions to commit evil acts. The priest however still has a choice whether or not to commit the evil act, they have a choice to rape or not, and as long as they had free will, and the choice not to rape, if they choose to rape then their action makes them evil.

When you think of this person, you will think of them as the person who, given the option to rape or not, consciously DECIDED to rape an innocent person. This cannot be compared with soldiers who kill in a war, unless that soldier is running around raping women and children for fun. There is really no situation, no objective, no gain that someone can get by raping people, so it's an act of evil.

If you can just think of one rational reason why someone would need to rape another person then you can change my mind, but until you can, it's an evil act, and people who commit evil acts are evil.

You are what you do.

 

Of course empathy shuts on and off, you honestly believe you
can experience an emotion 24/7? you cant.
All emotions shut on and off, they cant be continually experienced.

If you believe rapists/murderers who express remorse at thier past actions are all faking it (which i imagine amounts to litterally millions of people) then youre going to have to prove it. Or are you going to simply ad hom everytime i ask you to back up your claims?

Its well documented by proffesional psychologists/psychiatrists that people whove commited terrible acts can infact feel genuine remorse and sorrow for their crimes. So what youve just said has no basis in fact other than an unprovable unqualified opinion.

Then youre dealing with caricatures and not humanbeings im afraid. The problem with viewing people as good and evil is people are never going to absolutely conform to those extremes.
Just as people dont conform to being either dumb or smart. Even if we find someone who is extremely intelligent (lets say hawkins) we can still probably find more than a few stupid things he has done in both his personal life and proffesional carrer.
Thats how real life works, people arnt cartoons.

Its a possiblity yes, but to believe this is the only reason he did it and to discount all others i think is simply a means for you to contiue believing that people are either good/evil.

No you still dont get it and im starting to get the impression you
never will, seriously read some books on psychology, especially one
on criminial psychology.
You wil soon find that in no way shape or form is it accepted that commiting a crime makes one devoid of genuine emotion. You will soon realise that this is something that *you* simply choose to believe. I cant think of one proffesional working in the field of mental health would would agree for a second with your ascertions.

They only show a lack of empathy towards a specific situation, thats the whole point ive been trying to explain. In the same way that if i show insensitivity to someone in a situation, that doesnt mean that im INCAPABLE of being sensitive.
Just that i couldnt in that specific situation.

What? ive not even stated any of my views on reform and punishment, i could be wrong but i really think youve got some deep personal issues that relate strongly to this topic and its apparent when you make wild statements like that.

If someone commits rape then it means they had no empathy or they had some kind of mental block on any empathic emotions, or they have been raised to believe it is ok to do such things.
Rape is statistically far far more common in war-torn areas and destablised reigions, does that mean theres more sociopaths in those areas with a neurological inability to empathise? No that would be far too much of a coincidence. The reason is when a society isnt stable there arnt social norms to hold things together, so you get people who essentially should have no mental problems with feeling compassion for another humanbeing behaving incredibly discompassionately.
Infact heres a quote in regards to the Milgram and Zimbardo experiments (those names are actually worth googling in themselves by the way) that might make things abit clearer for you...

So now youre at least partially accepting that people with empathy can commit terrible acts, at last.

No the point was people create specific situations in which they make it morally ok for themselves to commit a terrible act.
How else do you think people who excecute inmates on deathrow, then go home to their husbands and wifes aftewards and kiss their kids goodnight beofre bed?
Im sorry but people who kill and rape are not by definition sociopaths 'end of story' only a tiny percentage are useally sociopaths.
Again, this is accepted throughout the entire field of psychology, so youre not even arguing with me anymore youre arguing with an entire discipline/paradigm.

You consistantly manage to completely miss the point each time, brining race and religion into doesnt make my argument weak atall.
Google 'suicide bomber pathology' and you'll see what im talking about.

I havent even expressed any views on punishment/reform! so how can you even begin to critique my opinion on it, and where on earth did you get the idea that i treat everyone the same? Youre making things up as you go along.

It doesnt really matter what you believe on the issue personally, the point is people will eat meat (a lack of compassion) but also paradoxically treat animals with care and love.
People can encompass both states of altruism and selfishness, get a grip and just accept it.

I agree, i dont eat meat for the same reasons. But remember back to when you did eat meat, were you a person without empathy of compassion?
No im sure like me you were more than capable of being emphatic, you just placed a mental block on your ability to empathise with animals...'animals are different they dont count, theyre not as smart as us, im still a good person even if i continue to eat them.'
This is the exact same process by which all people commit crimes/terrible acts.
I really dont see why you cannot get to grips with this, you obviously ate meat at one point in time (which you now believe is morally wrong) does that mean you would condem yourself as an evil person because you commited immoral acts at one stage of your life? No i doubt you would, you can probably accept that it simply means youre a complex human being who is neither good nor bad, but rather something inbetween.
Why cant you accept the same about other people?

EARTH TO TIMETRAVELER: people do good things and bad things, open your door sometime and take a look at the human race if psychology isnt enough to convince you.

Of course it matters what i say, since my views falls consistantly inline with modern psychology and current scientific thought.
People stopped seeing people as good or evil hundereds of years ago, society has moved on, we've realised theres all kind of shades of grey inbetween and we have experiments to verifiably prove it.

No i wouldnt because im grown up enough to realise that human beings arnt that simple.

Wtf are you talking about 'soft on crime' when did i ever say i was soft on crime? what are you talking about, seriously?

haha, ok. 1-0 to the coppers then?

Yes but that doesnt mean he is a monster with horns who is devoid of anything except pure evil. Thats completely irrational.

Noones justifying them! to understand doesnt mean to justify it just means you have a better idea of their motives and actions.
If you really want to reduce understanding in regards to the human psyche to 'people are good or evil. end of story!'
Then prehaps you should move to the congo? or the middle east?
I cant think of anywhere else in the world where those sorts of views would be taken seriously.

Evil doesnt exist, its just a quasi-religious concept, noone takes it remotely seriously anymore man.

Look, if you want to call people either good or evil, if you want to simplify life down to those abstract terms to make the complex reality easier to deal with, fine. But your definitions do not aid our understanding of why people act the way they do, and are of no use whatsoever in a progressive society.
You seem to erroneously believe that to understand is to let criminals off the hook and absolve people of wrong-doing. You completely misunderstand the whole point of disecting the human psyche, its so we can PREVENT these things from occuring.
Your good/evil dichotomy has no practical use in preventing crime or immoral acts, as to PREVENT we need to understand the reasons behind peoples actions.
Your beliefs in good/evil ultimately have no preventative qualities, mine do, therefore your entire position can be guaged as having less practical value to society.
It would also seem that the western judicial system/mental health services/social sciences would agree.

 

They are overridden, but this is not the same as shutting off. Fear overrides love, but it does not shut the emotion off completely, it just is so much stronger that you instinctively respond to it. Fight or flight.

Does it matter what words they say after they commited the crime and were found guilty? Does it matter what OJ Simpson says now, after everyone knows he did it?

I don't believe professional psychologists and psychiatrists all the time. These people can be fooled and usually are.

Thats the point, you need tough standards that no human can conform to, so that you can create a wide enough spectrum to judge people. You judge people based on how dangerous or harmful they are to you, themselves, and their environment/the community. It's that simple. People are simply energy, either creative or destructive forces. Humans are animals, and animal are energy, organized matter, living matter.

There is a difference between doing bad acts, and evil acts. A bad act, or bad actions, we all commit a few of these in our lifetime, ever actions however, like torturing, sure if you don't know right from wrong as a child you might, but why would any adult commit these acts if they know the difference between good and evil? If someone knows right from wrong and good and evil, they are even more at fault than the psycho who might not.

People are animals. Animals are good or evil based on what they are doing at any given moment. If an animal attacks you and goes for the kill, it's evil. You'll respond by killing it or running.

If he is selfish and evil enough to rape, he is selfish and evil enough to lie about it, is he not? He is not the sorta person who shows much empathy commiting the crime, so why believe what he shows after the crime is commited? There is good and evil, if someone is doing harm to the community, to themselves, or to you, they are evil. It's that simple.

You have book smarts and no street smarts.

Doesnt matter. If someone commits the wrong act, no one will believe them or care about their emotions anymore. If they could rape someone and not care about the emotions of the victim, why should they expect the general public to care how they feel?

If they can show lack of empathy in one situation they can show it in all situations. It's not situational emotion anymore than greed is. A greedy person is always greedy, not usually just greedy with money in a specific situation. Greed is a form of selfishness, it's not simply a bad habit, it's an urge, an emotion, an instinct.

Judge people and not situations. Personal responsiblity. People must be responsible for what they do, not simply allowed to blame it completely on the situation. Yes the situation you take into account, to see what options they might have had, but if a person chooses an evil option when they had many more good options, the person is to be blamed, not the situation, as is the case in rape.

I don't believe all crimes are reformable. I don't believe rapists can be reformed. Thats what makes them "evil".

Stop making excuses for evil actions. Personal responsibility!

More excuses. Many people don't rape no matter what the situation is.

Compassion is not taught. The expression of it is taught, not the feeling of it. You feel it or you don't, it cannot be taught anymore than greed can. You can act greedy because you are trained to, and never feel greedy. We all act greedy because thats how the system is designed, even if we don't feel it. However people who feel greedy, ALWAYS act that way, because it's natural for them to. They would have to be trained to be altruistic. A person with compassion has to be trained to act the opposite how of how they feel, and this is possible due to religion, or other forms of training and mental conditioning, but it's not something that they feel good about, or don't feel, they just learn to not trust that specific feeling.

There have been experiments where groups of students were made into prisoners and guards. In these situations yes people can display less empathy, but this is due to the environment. In prison, in the position of guard or prisoner, there is truly no space for empathy, theres no place for it. This does not mean people don't feel horrible in prison, most people can't wait to get out because it's psychological torture to live in prison, unless of course you are among the 20% who don't have empathy or compassion.

Certain acts are easier to justify in the mind than others. I don't see how anyone can justify rape. Stealing yes, being greedy yes, these can rationally be justified, and anything that can be justified rationally, can be commited by anyone no matter what their emotions say. Thats what rational means, it's the unemotional world that most people exist in. This does not mean they don't feel emotions. What I'm saying is rape is never rational, so the only justification for it, is evil. It's not the same as making money where you get rewarded for screwing the poor, or where you have to choose between your family and the family of other people.

I'm sure people do feel guilt commiting that act. This is why they don't know they commited it. There are 3 switches, each person flicks their switch, only one kills the prisoner on death row, and they never really know which one. This allows them to psychologically handle killing a human.

I specifically said rape. I did not talk about killing. I think only a certain type of killer is definately evil. If you target children, and if you plan it all out and decide to kill innocent people, thats evil. Think of columbine.

Psychologists do a horrible job preventing crime. Mainly because they don't understand good and evil better than the court system and the police. Obviously there are some crimes which are considered evil, this is why these crimes give life in prison, because some actions people cannot be reformed from.

How can suicide bombing be considered a "Good" act?

It's not about punishment or reform for me. It's about protecting myself from them. It's about protecting the community.

These are irrational people. I'm not saying I'm 100% rational all the time, but lets admit that these people are being irrational hypocrites. Now, I'm not saying all people who eat meat, hate animals, most people don't know how these animals are killed, I still don't know all the details myself. I can say that if most people did know, and had to watch the animals get slaughtered before their meal, they wouldn't be able to eat the meal. It's the fact that they don't see it, that they don't think about it. This is not the same as with rape where you see the victim being tortured.

People are more selfish or more altruistic based on which actions they commit to most of the time. It's all about how much they give vs how much they take. Just because you don't recognize the takers, it does not mean that some people won't suck you dry like a vampire. Just because you do not recognize the givers, it does not mean that people do not give up large sacrifices to give to others. Just because you ignore the extremes to focus on the mediocres, it does not mean the extremes do not exist. You focus too much on the mediocres to recognize good or evil.

No, I was not without compassion. The problem was never "eating" meat. The problem is how animals are treated when they are slaughtered. If you don't really know much about how the food system works and how screwed up it is, you don't have any motivation to change your habits, but if you know how messed up it is, you'll change. It's not that I don't eat any meat at all, I just don't eat certain meats, based on how these animals are treated. This is a situation where most people don't have enough information to know right from wrong, it's not the same as rape.

Thats not it either. It's more that when it's all set up to the point where you don't even have to think about it, it's just brought to you, if people basically give you meat, or cook it for you even, its more difficult to not accept it. If you had to hunt it yourself, then you'd likely not eat meat because you'd know what it means to eat meat, but if you just were to go to a store and buy it, you'd have no clue. Most people have no clue. I still don't know everything, but the more I learn the more disgusting meat becomes.

This makes sense for children, but adults should take personal responsibility. I will not make any excuses for an adult that commits rape. They know it's wrong. The information is out there, they know.

I don't think eating meat is evil or unnatural. Humans are supposed to eat meat. It's the WAY we do it that is unnatural. I don't like the thought of meat factories killing and slaughtering on a massive scale, feeding cows cow parts, and hormones, it's a torturing way to do it. It's not the fact that it's done, it's how we are doing it.

I'm good. Evil is when a person knows something is wrong morally, and knows it's harmful, but simply does it anyway. So if a person were to have the option to eat meat that was hormone free, and treated properly, and slaughtered in a humane way, but still choose to torture the animal or have it tortured before consuming it, thats evil, because there is no rational purpose beyond pleasure.

People eat because they have to, people should try to eat in the least harmful way. It's impossible to do no harm, I'll admit that, but if you live your life trying to do the least harm, then you are good. Rape is not optional from this perspective.

We were talking about good and evil, not good and bad. Evil are things which there is no rational explaination for. Example, is torture. Why torture anyone or anything? Why? You can eat meat if you want to, but do you have to torture the animals?

Actually no, people havent. This is the mode every person goes back to when attacked. If you get attacked, if someone breaks into your house and has a weapon, they are automatically an evil person and you will kill them just as quick as any other evil entity, like a poison spider, or a wild dog, they will be seen as a threat and you'll either fight them or run from them, but in your mind you'll see them as evil at that moment. This is basic psychology, it's fight or flight.

You make them simple enough to deal with. If you don't, then how will you make any decision at all on people? Do you treat them all as evil? some people do this. Others seperate them into good and evil. What do you do to judge people?

At that moment hes acting like a monster, so hes a monster. That's rational. People are how they act. Thats their true self.

Understanding is fine, but don't understand to the point where you cannot judge character anymore, or know the difference between good and evil. If you can't tell the difference between good and evil, how do you know anyone? You have to see people for what they truly are, based on how they are.

In the end, when you have to make a judgement call on a person, you'll make them either good or evil. You want it more simple? It will be Yes or No. 1 or 0.
Friend or Not.

You do realize that not everyone in this world is your friend, or even capable of being your friend? If you cannot judge character enough to see who will make a good friend and who will make a bad friend because you have no concept of good or bad, then how can you consider anyone to be a friend if you don't know their true nature?

Evil, defined by their actions. If someone is destructive, and they only commit destructive acts, they are evil. While most people you know are mediocre, meaning not really fully good or evil, the extremes definately exist. You have people who are saint like, and you have people who are devilish, and it's all based on their nature, and how they act. If someone dreams and plans on destroying the earth, do you consider this person good or evil? Yeah you can rationalize it and say "well what if I want the earth to be destroyed? Then they are good!", but it does not work this way. They are good or evil based on the harm they do to EVERYONE else, the total sum of their destructiveness decides how evil they are. If they destroy everything they touch, they are evil. If they heal everything they touch, they are good. Can you see the difference here?

Does it matter why monkeys behave like monkeys? They are animals, they behave like animals, kinda like all the other animals. Instead of focusing on why, why don't you focus on how the different behavior has different effects on everything else. Example, destructiveness is how much damage you do to the environment, other people, and yourself, this is how you can define how evil a person is, based on how destructive they are. Your main goal is to protect yourself, so if someone is destructive as hell, of course you are going to give them a label, you can call them evil, you can call them destructive energy, you can call them whatever you want, but these people exist.

Then you have people who do the exact opposite extreme, who try to heal everything, and create stuff, and fix stuff, and so on. Everyone is capable of channelling creative or destructive energy, because all people are, is energy, thats all you are, thats all anyone or anything is. Evil is destructive energy. Destructive energy has a purpose, but too much of it will destroy existance itself. I hope this defines evil for you.

Sure, you can prevent people from being destructive, but it's not going to be easy. They have to want to not be destructive. They have to love themselves. If they don't love themselves, you can analyze them all you want and you don't get anywhere because you cannot put yourself into the perspective of a person who hates existance.

Do you love life or hate life? Do you love existance or hate existance? Or are you completely indifferent like most people?

Beliefs in good and evil are personal. I'm not advocating that everyone adopt the same beliefs. I'm saying I believe in it, it's my way to discriminate.

Show me that it works. When the mental health and social services, and when psychologists and psychiatrists actually prevent crimes then I'll take it seriously. I don't see any changes in the destructive energy of man. In fact I see destructive energy on the increase. Man is destroying man, every day, while you study it and come up with new words for old problems. This has been going on since before psychology existed, and just because you have new words for good and evil, it does not change the fact that these things were discussed in every bible, of every religion, in simple plain language that anyone without a Phd or college degree can understand.

 

Let me try and put this another way so maybe you can understand, if i preform of act of extreme piety and goodwill - lets say i give all my money to a crippled child so they can get better, also for the sake of argument lets assume i have the childs best interests at heart i have no selfish ulterior motives.
Does that one action mean im a good person for the rest of my life, even if i suddenly decide to turn into the most ruthless/uncaring bastard the world has ever seen?
Do you see now how absurd it is now to label people on the basis of one action and disregard all others?

You dont have to care about rapists or murders to comprehend the fact that they may in fact be capable of emotions other than hate/lust/greed/evil. Thats the critical flaw in your reasoning, you believe to understand the psychology of someone you dislike means you have to love them and let them off the hook. It doesnt and i really dont know where youve gotten the idea that is does.

You can be altruistic and greedy according to different situations and your moods, i wont debate this with you since it is an observable fact.
Behaving altruistically doesnt mean youre always going to behave altruistically and behaving greedily doesnt mean you will always behave greedily.
This isnt up for debate it is an observable fact and accepted by proffesionals. If you still cant accept this test your belief against what other people believe. Prehaps start a thread asking if anyone as you do, believes that by displaying greed in a single instance this makes you a greedy person incapable of altrusim.
I think the best way to test your ideas is to see how they tally up with everyone elses, if the vast majority (over 90%) are in disagreement with its probably time to accept that you may be wrong about humanbeings.

Yes of course people should always be made to take responsibility for their actions!

Well people do rape, come out of prison and never rape again. So it seems reform is possible with a percentage of offenders, otherwise all rapists would repeat offend without question, which clearly isnt the case.
I guess you could argue the threat of punishment (especially having been to prison) might be playing a part in their behaviour though, rather than their conscience.

This is another critical flaw in your reasoning, understanding why someone commits a crime doesnt equate to - making excuses for them. Do you believe thats what criminal psychologists do all day? sit around all day making excuses for criminals and repeat offenders?

Again this is something i laid out in black and white already on more than a couple of occasions. Please dont argue against a position i dont even hold, it comes across like youre not even bothering to read what ive written.

Nope! they dont, if you want to continue that like of illogical reasoning either find A. one person on this forum who agrees with that position or
B. a proffesional psychologist who agrees with that position, and i will take you seriously. Because as it stands it appears that its only you holds this opinion.
Without appearing rude, do you have autism? as ive never come across a normal functioning person who has such a problem understanding the complexity of human behaviour. Its as if you need to paint everything as either black or white for the world to appear less chaotic and scary.

Bingo, its environment that offen plays a central role in our compassion or lack thereof, rather than inherent 'goodness' or 'evilness'.

Women are sub-human, they dont deserve the same rights as men, theyve been put here by God to fuffil our needs as men and should yield to your needs when we demand it.
Its easy see?

If you can realise that those switches also (figuritively speaking) exist in the human mind as well, then you'll begin to see how we can set all kind of loop-holes and conditions whereby we dont have to acknowledge guilt or feel bad about x y and z.

Labeling people as good or evil with no kind of acknowledgement of anything in between is about the worst way to protect/secure a community i can think of.
If you refuse to understand why people act the way people do and clutch to stereotypes instead how are things ever going to improve?
At least with my views i have an understanding of the situations and circumstances that can arrise to make people act out in anger. If i understand what situations can bring about those actions in people then i have a much better chance of preventing them.
Its called 'sociology', another great tool we have for both understanding and creating a better society for everyone.

But thats what you still dont get, half of the time thats all evil really IS, hypocracy and irrationality.

And alot of the evil you percieve in the world works on the exact same basis; ignorance.

Ah but dont forget that some people hunt for their food, and have no problem shooting an animal in the head and gutting it.
Does that make those evil people? or does it mean theyre affording themselves a specific situation in which their use'all everyday morality does not apply? You see people compartmentalise the various aspects of themselves, the person who kills a deer but wouldnt dream of killing a human will never see the contradiction and hypocracy because they dont allow themselves to see it. Its not evil at work man, its the ability of the human mind to play hide and seek with itself.
Much in the same way that a suicide bomber wont allow themselves to see that a killing an 'evil westerner' isnt really any different from killing an arab.

Or we could just call them evil instead, and not try to understand what makes them tick to make life easier, although certainly *not* safer.

The Harvard psychologist Martha Stout estimates that psychopaths make up four percent of the population.
I think its infact you that has the unhealthy obsession to focus on the extreme end of the behavioural spectrum without focusing on the fact that most people fall somewhere inbetween.

Says who? i mean you do realise that morality is entirely subjective right? i could quite easily suggest that by eating meat youre commiting an act every bit as bad as rape, infact worse - youre allowing life to be taken and youre getting fat off the process.
How about i label you as evil? seeing as evil can only ever be defined subjectively theres not alot stopping me.
But do you think im wise in polarizing you in this fashion?

Ah come on now, most people rationally know that at some point in the equation an animal has been killed for that meat to have arrived on the supermarket shelves. They can ignore the fact that animals are being killed and mistreated and hide it from themselves but deep down they know.
Does this make them discompassionate? nope, it just means theyre ignoring their own compassion to make life easier, big big difference.
If you could realise that this is the way in which most evil actually occurs then i think youd understand life and people a hell of alot better.
Most evil is not the actions of a manic sociopath devoid of love taking exactly what he wants, most evil that you percieve is your average everyday person that you pass in the street.
You think the Nazis were all-out psychos? think again. The vast majority were normal compassionate people thrown into an alien situation in which they ended up carrying out unspeakable acts.

Understand does not = to excuse.

lol, you do know murder and rape are natural too? all mammals kill and rape its entirely natural. Im afraid that argument doesnt really stand up as a way of advocating meat-eating, since you are against other natural forms of animal behaviour (rape, etc).

Yeah but you eat free-range, so sadly to me youre still evil, sorry.

Youre not good even by your own standards, there was a point at which you must have eaten meat produced via the industrialised process, with knowledge of all the implications.
Or did you stop the *very instant* you found out how meat arrived at your table?
The same moral argument youre playing against other people can just as easily be played against you according to the same standards, thats all im illustrating. Morality isnt just what you decide it is.

Someone who tortures is much more likely to be a sociopath yes, although we've already seen that environment and circumstance can turn the average joe next door into a homocidal maniac with relative ease as well.

No you just see them as a threat, you dont have to see them as evil atall, althoug dehumanisation the threat does help.

How about just judge people via their actions while taking into account all the variables that lead upto their actions?
What good are your labels of good and evil? seriously.

Only via your limited perception of that person in that fragment of time, your limited experience of that person doesnt define the person, his inter-relation with *all* the people hes ever come into contact with does.

I dont think you really know the difference between good and evil yourself, i think you may have trouble understanding that they are actually highly subjective concepts.

Well ive never labeled anyone as good or evil ever, i think humans are more dynamic than that, so you will simply have to accept that not everyone sees the world in accordance with your terms.

I can judge character well enough to comprehend that my limited experience of a person doesnt equate to the full reality of who that person is.
If someone fucks me over i wont be their friend, but that doesnt mean i have to turn them into some evil boogey-man character in my head to rationalise what i experience.
I really think thats a pretty immature approach to life.

Yes, but can you see that hardly anyone conforms to these polar opposite values? and why those terms are practically useless?

Ah ok, all im saying is your forms of discrimination by their very nature are overly simplistic - you only have TWO definitions (good/evil) so the whole range of human behaviour has to be somehow lumped into those two catagories, not exactly a good way to go about defining anything id say, human behaviour or anything else for that matter.

Ok i'll give you one example out of hundereds: schizophrenics, if you were in charage of the world someone with schizoprenia would simply be evil, and we would not be permitted to describe or understand them beyond your two word definitions of good/evil.
Thankfully we live in a world where thats not the case, and people with schizophrenia can we treated with medication so they dont go around bashing someones head in because they believe theyre the devil.

So humanity is doomed and we should just give up on ourselves?

 

No. It simply means you are less of a bad person than the person who never did a single altruistic act for anyone. There is a spectrum of Good and Evil, you can place on the Evil side of the spectrum, but not be the most evil person on planet earth because you take Karma into account and try to balance yourself out.

I never said I label based on the amount of actions, I label based on the amount of harm/damage they do. If you arent doing a huge amount of damage, then you don't owe the planet as much than if you do a huge amount of damage. A perfect example is, pollution, if you do a lot of pollution, you eventually make the environment toxic for everyone. Now, no one is saying that everyone else doesnt pollute, all animals eat, breath air, and shit. The shit is the pollution that all animals give, so is trash and other things, correct?

Now, what I'm saying is, if you pollute A LOT, then you eventually start to harm a lot of innocent people, animals, and other beings. If you are aware of the harm you are doing, you can take measures to lessen the burden you have on everyone else. By lessening the damage you do to the environment, you also lessen the damage you do to animals. This makes you LESS evil, it does not automatically make you good.

In order to be good, you not only must try to limit the harm and damage you cause, but you should also go out of your way, to make things better. I only consider myself good because, I want to make the world better than it was when I was born into it. My intentions are good. My success in doing that is very limited, but what I can do, is make the quality of life better for the people who know me personally. I can do more good for the world than evil, to put myself on the side of the good. I care about the common good, have you heard of it?

I'm not saying you shouldnt understand the psychology. I'm saying I see good and evil, because I see people are energy, as forces of nature, as either creative or destructive forces, as either a force for positivity, or negativity. This is based on their complete history, the complete history you have with the person. If in your complete history with that person, the majority of the time they are hurting other people, then thats what they are, they hurt people because thats them. At some point you have to accept people for who they are. Everyone has a bad side, but our bad sides are not all equal just like our good sides arent. So for a lot of evil people, they commit a good act, as a mask for all the bad actions they have commited over a lifetime. No that good act will not prevent them from being evil, it's about the majority of acts they have commited throughout their lifetime that defines them. It's how they operate day to day. If someone for example never commited a crime in their life, let's take Michael Jackson for example, and then way later on in life, is suspected of rape, or commited rape, he should definately go to prison, and depending on the damage that action does should decide if he is evil or not.

If the child for example, is not completely emotionally and psychologically destroyed, and is paid a lot of money, and then the next child is paid a lot of money and suddenly gets well, then Michael Jackson himself is not evil, but he's a bad person. His action was evil, and because the consequences of his actions are something we cannot calculate, we don't know how evil he is, we just know hes not to be trusted with kids, we know hes a pedophile. We don't know if hes an evil pedophile, we don't know if he raped the kid or not, we don't know what sorta damage has been done to the kid, so we cannot declare him evil.

Now, a person who rapes a kid, who is crying and begging for the person to stop, we can call this person evil because this person knew for sure they were doing irrepairable damage to the childs psyche, unlike Michael Jackson where the damages are unknown and it's not proven if he actually did it, what he did was enough for people to stop buying his Albums and stop trusting him with their kids, so while he might not be evil, hes not good anymore.

Sure, but why trust a person who is not consistant? If someone acts only according to their moods then can you say you know that person? A person is a collection of actions. It has nothing to do with moods. You know a person based on their collection of actions. Michael Jackson is known by his collection of actions. Rape to me is the sort of evil action that can make someone who did mostly good actions their entire life, completely tainted, because it's so damaging and harmful. Rape harms a lot of people because it not only harms the victim, but sometimes the victim goes on to abuse other people, and it can start a domino effect which can hurt hundreds or thousands of people.

It doesnt, but people only know a person based on a collection of actions. If a person most of the time is greedy, it means they are a greedy taker. If a person most of the time is a giver, it means they are an altruistic giver. Yeah, life is give and take, and everyone is a giver or a taker in different situations, but which one are you most of the time? Please stop ignoring the fact that people are one thing more than the other, there is no balance, as no human is balanced. People lean on one side or the other, and while most people are only slightly evil, or slightly good, you have people who are extremely evil and extremely good also. People almost always fall on one side or the other. It's possible that people can be neutral, but neutral is actually more rare than the extremes. Neutral is smiple that the person is seeking to be balanced between good and evil. An example, if a person does bad things, but not a lot of seriously evil things, and does good things, but not a lot of seriously good things, neutral just means that they have not done any harm to you directly.

What I'm saying is, everyone is on a spectrum based on their total collection of actions. People are judged by the actions of the past.If someone was capable of something in the past you know they are capable of it in the future. Michael Jackson is judged by what people say he did in the past. If we ever had proof, like if they had it on tape, and the kid was screaming and being held down, then he'd be evil. Because it's not on tape, and the kids mysteriously stop complaining after they get paid, hes just a bad guy, a pedophile.

I never said judge people by single actions. However, an action as extreme as rape, requires EXTREME evil to commit, it's not like you can commit it just because you are bad, you have to be evil to torture a living being. Do you really think torturing is something you are capable of because you are in a bad mood? Do you think you are capable of raping a person? If not, then admit that I'm right and that it's an evil act. It's an act of evil, because it's commited by people who are evil. It's not like greed which can be commited by anyone. It's not like murder which can be commited in self defense. It's a crime which has no other purpose than to damage and display power and control over the victim.

Everyone has their own ideas of good and evil. I'm not trying to make people adopt my ideas of good and evil. It's better if people have their own personal concepts of it. All I'm saying is, have a concept of it, because at some point you will have to draw the line, you will have to deal with people who you will consider "evil", and if you cannot even recognize them, well, how is that better? what are we supposed to call evil people? sick? Point is, there are people who destroy everything they touch, and who hurt people, routinely.

You are someone who thinks they should get out of prison. Most people who commit rape, in specific, do rape a gain. I'm not saying 100% of all of them, but why should we take a chance? It's RAPE. I'd agree with you if most rapists didnt commit rape again, or if we could put a chip in them and track their every move for the rest of their life, put them in a sex offender database, etc.

People rape because they feel like it. They want to do it, so they do it. They don't care if its right or wrong, they are a slave to their feelings and instincts, to the point where they don't respect other people. The person they are raping is seen as a sex toy, a tool, an object for their enjoyment. Just because you think that feel empathy, well if you view a person like that, thats not empathy.

It's logical for ME. It does not have to be logical for you. I mean you have not told me how you go about judging character. You have not told me how you judge people, but obviously you do. I'm just saying, a person is good or evil, depending on the collection of acts they commit in their lifetime.

I don't have autism, I just don't appreciate the complexity of human behavior like you do. You LIKE to study people for the fun of it, you LIKE to try and understand everyone. You ENJOY the complexity of human behavior, therefore you want it to be as complex as possible, you'll use big huge words, and try to make it complex as to keep it interesting for you. Other people don't need all that, they are not a professional and don't want to be, they simply want to deal with people in the most efficient way. The words don't matter, you judge people too, you judge people as good or evil, you just don't use the words good or evil because you want to use more complex words, phrases, sentences, or books worth of words phrases and sentences which basically mean the exact same thing. Evil is a lot more concise, but I could come with books worth of knowledge too and use a lot more words. Basically people judge others based on how dangerous the person is, based on how much of a threat they are, and people know how much of a threat a person is based on their history. It's that simple. We all do it, we all judge.

In that case people who grow up in the most dangerous, painful, destructive environments have the most compassion. This would mean that the poor should have more compassion than the rich because they see more suffering on a daily basis. This should mean people who grow up in the slums and ghettos have more compassion, and the people in the congo, or who grow up in civil wars have the most compassion. Sadly, thats not true.

I grew up under conditions you'd consider harmful, and it had absolutely no influence on what I feel, in fact it might have actually strengthened my compassion. This means that harsh environments might actually make a persons emotions much more intense, if you are filled with hate and grow up in a harsh environment you might be more hateful, if you are filled with love and grow up in a harsh environment, you might be more loving. I'm not so sure of this though, I cannot say for sure if class has anything to do with compassion. I think there are rich people who have compassion, and rich people who don't. I think there are poor people who have compassion, and poor people who don't. I've seen both worlds, and from what I've seen, compassionate people exist in both places.

That's if you believe women are seperate from men. Even among people who believe women are inferior, not all of these people abused women. Even people who owned slaves, not all of them abused and tortured their slaves. It's not just ideology and religion, religion justifies it sure, but it does not make a person good or evil, thats instinct.

There are no switches. I've never felt a switch turn off and on, ever. I wish it were that simple honestly. I'd turn compassion and empathy off and then I'd operate much more efficiently in the business world. Guess what though, I can't. I can still operate with it, but it's a pain in the ass to feel emotions like that when I cannot follow them.

The way to protect a community, is to protect the community from people.
Remember, people are animals, just like the others.

It's not possible to understand WHY people do stuff when you don't have the same emotional spectrum as them. Am I supposed to understand how the hater operates when I don't feel hate? Of course not, I don't have to understand why they did it, I understand how their mind works enough to know they have a different energy. Thats all I need to know, I'm not going to try to make sense out of something that is simple. You humanize it to the point where you make it too complex to make sense of. It's simple, people are energy, and destructive energy destroys stuff. Creative energy creates stuff. Judge people based on their energy, based on how much of a destructive force the person is to the community, and you'll always be correct. If you try to psychobabble it into complexity, only you and your psychologist friends will be able to understand it, and average people won't be able to know what the hell it means.

People act out in anger because they have short tempers, and lack of self control. Everyone experiences anger, but we don't all run around and riot just because we are mad, do we? Acting out is a waste of time and energy. The person who is acting out might simply be immature, it's our job to teach self control, self restraint, anger management, but we can only do this if the person has self esteem, they have to love themselves, and care about themselves, and then they can work on improving themselves. In the end, if a person decides they just don't give a fuck, and continue acting out, getting worse, and more violent progressively, where do you draw the line before you come to the conclusion that they are a violent and destructive person?

I've studied sociology, psychology, philosophy, I know the terms. I also grew up around people. You have book smarts but you have no street smarts. What I'm suggesting is that you are unable to judge character, and therefore cannot judge people at all. Just because you cannot judge people, it does not mean that people should never be judged, or that there is no right and wrong, or no good and evil, or no positivity and negativity, etc. This is real, people have different vibes, different energy, etc. You can only judge people based on how destructive they are in the end.

Destructiveness. What don't you understand about it?

Children are ignorant. I'm talking about adults who know right from wrong and who choose wrong. I'm talking about people who choose to hate even when they know it's self destructive. I'm talking about intelligent people, who are simply destructive to the core. You might not be able to accept it, fine.

If I had to hunt for my food I'd have no problem doing it, sure I'd not enjoy it, but if I have nothing else to eat I'd do it too. It's not evil to kill in self defense. It's evil to kill for FUN. Don't you understand the difference?!

It's always morally right to defend yourself. It's rational therefore it's morally right.

If human were the only food source, say we are trapped in space, then we'd be killnig and eating each other, and the humans who are unable to do it would be killed first. It's morally RIGHT to protect your life, even if it means taking a life. It's morally right to protect your family, even if you have to take a life. It's morally right to protect others, even if it costs lives. Does this mean everyone will enjoy doing it? Of course you won't enjoy it, it's a chore, it sucks, but reality is like that. Sometimes you have to do what you don't want to do, just to survive. I never said that people who kill to survive are evil. I'm talking about the people who kill for fun, or rape for fun, thats a different sort of person, why can't you understand the difference?

Terrorists are evil. They kill innocent people. Those guys who crashed planes into the towers on 9/11 were EVIL if they knew for a fact that innocent people, who have families are on that plane, and if they knew for a fact the damage they'd do to our country, to our national psyche, to their own countries and image. Yes thats an evil act, and they were/are evil. Those terrorists, they attacked civilians, they killed innocent people, and they are far as we know at least, were aggressors. There might be more to the story than this, but from our perspective the attackers were evil.

Actually we should do both. You figure out what makes them tick, I'll call them evil. This way, people who don't have degrees will understand what the hell you are talking about. I don't think the average person understands your big words, you think the average person has a degree from college? Yeah maybe we do, maybe our families do, but the majority of the people in this country are not educated and DO think in good and evil. Hell even most educated people think in good and evil, the only ones who don't seem to be psychologists, sociologists, basically the people who study people for a living.

Estimate=guess. Fact, psychopaths make up 20% of the prison population, and this was actually measured, it was not a guess. In reality though, it does not matter, these terms don't matter, people are either destructive or not. Not all psychopaths are evil, in fact some psychopaths do a lot of good, it depends really.

Because the extremes are whats REAL. All the murky wishy washy inconsistant "grey" stuff that you study, is the fake side, you are studying what Jung would call the Personas, you are studying the masks that people wear, instead of trying to dig deep into the core, down to their being.

Morality is logical. If you are immoral, you go extinct after a while, because morality exists to prevent a species from going extinct. You want an example? It's rational to protect your community, it's moral to protect your community. It's rational to protect yourself, and it's moral to protect yourself. It's rational to protect women and children, and it's moral to protect women and children. It's rational to protect your species, and it's moral to protect your species. It's rational to protect your environment and it's moral to protect your environment. It's rational to protect animals, and it's moral to protect other animals. Want an example? We protect dogs because of mutualism, we both mutual benefit, the dog benefits because we feed this species, and can train this species, the human benefits because it has a loyal protector. As a result, we protect dogs. We also can protect animals because we study them, by studying for example how monkeys are immune to HIV we can learn to cure it better. We also protect animals because through animals we can understand human behavior. Finally, animals are valueable because we can learn from them and they can learn from us, it's actually beneficial to our evolution to have such diversity. The most rational reason that exists to protect life on earth is to maintain a healthy eco-system. When we make other species go extinct, we disturb the balance, this can make new viruses and species appear and start to prey on us after easier targets run out. This can also cause us to run out of food, and lots of other problems.

Now I'm not saying all animals are equal. We should value them by their level of awareness.This means if an animal can feel pain, we should respect the fact that it feels pain and not torture it. This means if an animal has a brain a lot like ours, we should not eat it.

It depends on the type of meat. Like I said, it's about awareness. You are right, it's wrong to torture animals, but these animals are not being tortured simply because people are hungry for meat. There were times in the recent past, where cows were being slaughter, but not as inhumanely as they are now. If a cow is allowed to eat grass, if a cow is killed in a quick and painless fashion, this is a lot better than slaughting the cow in the most painful and torturing way possible. We could with our technology, simply put the animal to sleep, but instead we bang it in the head with a hammer, and put hormones into it, and do all sorts of other stuff like feed it cow parts. So it's not that eating meat is equal to rape, torturing animals however is getting close to it.
I think it depends on the awareness level of the animal, but we can assume cows feel pain, if you torture it, it's as bad as torturing a person.

If you for example, have beastiality sex with animals, yes, in my mind that is rape. That's why it's wrong.

You can label me whatever you want, but like I said, a person is a collection of actions. Since you have no concept of what good or evil is, you cannot even define what evil is when you label it, so I cannot take it seriously.

I didnt know. I still don't know the full story. I've never actually SEEN cows get slaughter, I've just read stories and heard rumors, but the rumors were so sick and disgusting that I decided not to continue eating cows. Also you have stuff like mad cow disease which PROVES all the rumors true. Look, if we are feeding cows pigshit, and then giving them steriods, and doing all this shit to them just to fatten them up for people to buy it, I don't want it. I'm not saying people shouldnt buy it, someone has to buy it, because they'd be slaughtered either way, and the meat goes completely to waste if no one buys it and thats even worse. What I'm saying is, if people want to eat meat they should be aware of what the cow goes through. They should try to LIMIT the harm, I'm not saying people have to change their diet, because some people need to eat meat to remain healthy, I'm saying they should LIMIT harm. This means you can buy organic meat, thats grass fed, and not given hormones, it's a start. It's not going to prevent cows from being slaughtered, it's going to however allow the cows to suffer less.

People are unaware of the suffering cows go through until it's explained to them. Then you can give them alternatives, like grass fed hormone free meat.
Maybe in the future there will be meats from cows which had a somewhat normal life. And in the end we might be able to ditch animal flesh altogether once we develop synthetic meats with the same nutitional properties, texture and taste. Once this happens, then if people still eat cows, you can call them immoral and evil. Until that time, people do not have the freedom to not eat meat, everyone has to eat some kinda protien, at best you can get people to ditch red meat, which is cows and stuff like that and eat just chicken for example, and then you can get people to eat just fish, but in general if they all move to fish then I have less to eat so there is not a lot I can do here. I still eat fish and chicken.

I don't think most evil is ignorance. I think evil is when a person knows right from wrong and chooses to do wrong for PLEASURE. This means if you know you have synthetic meat, which tastes and has the same nutritional values as real meat, but you still choose to buy real meat, and not only that, but want to buy it from the factory that tortures the cow, then yes you can then say they made a conscious choice to be evil. It's not ignorance if you have better options and choose the worst option.

I don't know and don't care what psychological state the nazi's were in. This was before I was alive, likely before you were alive. I see nazism as a religious movement, not as a psychological state. I'm sure some nazi's were/are psycho, and I'm sure some aren't, just like any other group.

If you want to understand, why dont you study the prison population, learn how humans behave.

Animals kill to survive, they murder for food, this is why I'm not saying that killing and eating cow or whatever is evil, all animals do this. What I'm saying is, TORTURING is evil, rape for PLEASURE is evil. The human rapist has no reason to rape, they do it for pleasure, and for power, they don't do it for some rational reason like the other animals.

Free range is evil in your opinion. I don't think killing in self defense is evil. It's rational to eat, and meat is a source of protien, it's not the best source, but when you look in a super market, for some people it actually is the best source availible to them. Until we have synthetic meat, I would not call it evil. Until there is a better alterntive (and there isnt), free range is the lesser evil. Like I said, minimize harm, and free range meat allows you to minimize harm without sacrificing your health.

I never said killing is evil. I said torturing is evil. See you are confusing my standards with yours.

I'll admit that it's morally wrong to harm animals, but killing is not morally wrong when your survival is at stake. As long as meat is the best source of protien availible, it's going to be eaten, people are not going to self sacrifice to save animals, and it would be morally wrong for them to do that. It's morally right for a person to protect their health.

Stop associating sociopathy with evil, like I said before, not all sociopaths are evil. Not all sociopaths torture animals. Yeah, the torturing type of crimes are crimes which require the skillset of a sociopath, but thats about it.

Basically, rapists lack empathy, and torturers lack empathy. I'm not sure exactly how someone who has empathy, can go through with torturing another human. I can't even torture an animal. I can't even torture a cat, dog, mouse, etc. I feel guilt over harming mice, so I'm not going to make a good torturer, and theres no way I could ever rape. Some people just are not built for rape and torture. Some people are built for it but are smart enough to choose not to do it.

Why humanize anyone? What is human anyway? It's undefined. I see people are energy. We have not agreed on a definition of what human is yet. Some people don't think other races are human yet. Some people don't think women are human. At this point we don't have a definition of what a human is, besides a talking monkey. In the end, I define humans as a family, my family, built up of different energy. So you have the extremes on the spectrum.

When you deal with extremes you at least know what you are dealing with, when you deal with the grey, you don't really know the person, or the person does not fully know themselves, neither is good. Because in the end, you are going to want to try and KNOW them, and the only way to KNOW them is to know their energy.

The variables don't take back the consequences of their actions. Consequentialism.

You learn as much about the person in the time you have with them until you know them. If you cannot know them, then you base your judgements on what you know. That's all you have to judge character, you have to make a decision one way or the other, you have to decide. There are methods and ways to judge character without interviewing every person they have ever come into contact with, but all you have is your limited experience with them to judge them on, so thats what you judge them on.

I just told you, absolute destructiveness is what I consider evil.

Just because you refuse to label them, it does not mean they don't exist. I'm never going to understand how the evil individual sees the world if their vibe is the complete opposite of mine. What if they have emotions I do not have, or have instincts I do not have? So you see, it's never going to be possible to understand every single person on the earth. All that matters is how they treat you , themselves, others, the community etc.

Froim your perspective, we never truly know anyone. I think you are wrong, I think we do know people, it's just difficult and takes a lot of experience. Your grey world where no one knows anyone, in that world how exactly do you trust anyone if you don't know anyone? You have to know a person well enough to trust them to be themselves.

Why wait for people ot fuck you over? are you a doormat? If you know someone is the type to fuck everyone over, you adapt to THEM. You don't wait to be fucked over and then be like "hey I was fucked over, AGAIN".

If someone fucks you over, they likely fucked a lot of other people over too, and if thats all they do is fuck people over, then they are a fucker.

I'll admit that good and evil are extremes, but if you don't know the extremes you'll always be in the grey unknown. I don't know why you like to function and not know people one way or the other. How exactly do you NOT get fucked over when you function in the grey? In the grey world, everyone fucks everyone over because no one knows ANYONE. From your perspective the best strategy is to simply assume everyone will fuck you over, and fuck them over first. It's an unnecessary way to function when you can just, not surround yourself with people who fuck each other over in the first place.

If you have to do business with people who fuck each other over, you know the rules, you make sure that if they fuck you over, that you win in the end.

No, not the whole range of human behavior is good or evil, some behavior is neutral. What I'm saying is you have to label, and you have to discriminate to survive. You cannot survive without discrimination of some kind. As much as you want to view everyone as a potential friend or whatever, you have to recognize that some people will hate you no matter how nice you are to them, and will never be your friend, and always seek to fuck you over, and always take from you, and always try and hurt you, and not only do this to you, but everyone else they come into contact with. So you see, you have to deal with everyone, you have to deal with people who literally don't give a fuck, about you, about themselves, about life, about anything. You have to deal with people who live for the thrill of hurting you, and hating you.

Do you want to call them sick instead of evil? Some people think being called sick is worse than being called evil. Still, you still label.

So what do you want to call evil people? haters? destroyers? what? It does not matter what you call them, they still exist.

No we should not give up on ourselves. I'm just going to say, that until you recognize theres a such thing as good and evil, humanity will never know itself. The extremes are like the outlines of a 2d image of humanity. If you draw a human body on a piece of paper, of a man and a woman, the outline would be the extremes, the good and the evil. The more inward you go, the more more common you might be on the bellcurve. The problem with being in the grey is that while this is where the movers and shakers operate, it also makes it difficult for people to notice you. It's grey, people don't really see anyone in this area, because it's so grey you never know if a person is good, evil, or what.

When you think of say, Ghandi, was he grey? No, he was good. When you think of the typical serial killer rapist like Richard Ramirez the nightstalker, he was evil. He was not evil just because he commited one crime, but because thats all he ever did with his life, all he did was kill people and rape people, over and over, or steal, or rob people, or just do crimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ramirez

As you see in the above quotes, the man was evil. You can't see this? The mob that wanted to rip him apart limb from limb say this.