What percentage of people you've met do you consider a genuinely good person? Someone you could trust your life with if need be?
Edit: I don't mean someone that will sacrifice their life for yours, more someone who would go out of their way to rush you to the hospital or something
just a few and that's ok. people will make good and bad things and there are a few with whom you'll really get along with. keep them close.
"Good" or "trust my life with"? The two can be mutually exclusive. If I was in the wrong, would a good person defend me?
I've met a few people with genuinely good morals in my life. They do exist and are almost incorruptible. Most people are flexible in that we can make justifications for almost anything.
I have trusted humans in the past. They have always failed me. Humans are not to be trusted. Just look at the state of the terrarium we live in.
Good? Many The other is completely different thing independent of being 'a good person'
I think the number is a lot higher and the barrier of trust a lot lower than people think.
If you come across a vehicle accident and you are able to help someone generally people don’t even think and just take action to save another persons life.
In reactionary scenarios where direct intervention saves someone’s life, people help a lot more than you’d think.
As a species we generally have a bypass in our brains that makes us want to help others in desperate need.
Zero, but I've heard rumors they exist.
There are a lot of people who would rush me to the hospital but also voted to take away my rights and worse. I don't know if I believe in good people these days.
Zero. Become partially disabled for over a decade and you might understand. Sometimes surviving is worse than dying. You might become a different person you might not, but you will likely discover how everyone in your life is largely there in relative orbits. If you get knocked out of the stellar system, what you thought of as the planets that grounded your social world will not leave the star to chase after you no matter how much you need them to.
I didn't expect an astrophysics analogy when I opened this post but good one
Having been through a bad health situation, I understand what you mean. Not even my own parents supported me.
That's terrible.
They are the only ones that are supposed to help you.
Also the people you consider real friends can let you down.
In my experience it's sometimes the ones you don't expect that are there for you.
You didn't ask their help and are just close enough to vent your problems.
Those are the good people and that gives me a sparkle of hope for the otherwise very grim world.
Absolutely. I’m not disabled but I can say with confidence there are genuinely zero good people on this planet. Me included. People are truly only in it for themselves and will cast aside and trample anyone who gets in their way.
Learned that first from my parents. Even if they’re related to you, they will throw you under the bus at their earliest convenience.
Im 58, I've et 4 people in my life I'd classify as "good". Im with one and I'm not one.
All 4 are women, which gives me pause as a guy.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Having lived here for over half a century now, and having met a ton of people and having get to know a solid portion of them better, I could safely say:
My wife and myself. The rest I would not bet a TicTac on. Homo homini lupus est. People are nice to you, even seem like "good people", but, as another comment or already said, people are contextual.
Be a tiny bit different from the mass and you'd notice why. People are nice to you as long as you provide some kind of benefit to them. Now or in the future. Even worse if you have money and they know it.
Yet, Despite me being misanthropic as hell, I still do care about my fellow species-members (everything living actually) and do voluntary work for disabled people and stuff like that. And yes, I know that most of them would probably sell me to one of Dante's circles of hell to get rid of their disability. But there are always some pearls somewhere in the ocean. It's worth finding them. Tiresome and frustrating, but worth it.
I know way more people who would at least attempt to save my life in an emergency than I think are genuinely good people. But I do actually think that's part of identifying a decent person. Empathizing with someone suffering in front of you and wanting to help is such a low standard for empathy that even untrained animals sometimes pass this bar. Empathizing with living things more broadly and outside of your personal bubble is a task that's apparently too much to ask of most people I've met. Good way to gauge this is to get someone talking for a bit about the unhoused population of their hometown.
I think animals are much more capable of empathy than the average person
0%
I don't think it's wise to ever trust another person 100%. You should be aware that anyone could turn on you in the correct situation with the correct pressures.
The answer is contextual, just like people are contextual. Sometimes, my circles are all busy or stressed out and we can’t really be there for each other. Other times, strangers have saved me, like the couple that took me in when lockdowns started and I was far from home.
Have you heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment? Or the Princeton Seminarian experiment? Or the Milgram Experiment? All of them confirm that people are contextual. That’s lesson 1 in psychology, but we humans easily forget it. We focus on the person and forget the context. That folly of ours even has a name: Fundamental Attribution Error.
Fwiw Stanford was basically a scam. The story as it's usually told is a lie, and its results are in serious contention, even beyond the usual replication issues psychology studies have.
Milgram is a good study, and even seems to have survived multiple replication attenpts, but its results are often overstated in their broader applicability. Notably: there are issues around the idea that it is "authority" that causes people to comply, as is usually claimed, instead of a belief in "expertise" or trust in the system (e.g. that a university-authorised study is obviously not going to kill people). Still, the conclusions are good enough for the purposes of your comment here.
There is a big difference between a good person that will not intentionally do you harm and is happy to help vs one that would enter risk to save you in life or death.
I know lots of people I am confident would do me no harm and treat me well. I know a few that do not care / can’t be trusted.
As for my life that is fairly limited to select family and a few friends.
Having actually been rushed to hospital when I was a kid by my friends after a big accident on my bike I would say the number is higher than you might think. They even walked by bike back home, which considering it was miles from home was pretty mad for teenagers.
I would say at least 20 people I know who are close to me either have done something I would consider above and beyond for me already or I know for sure would do so. Thats not counting any relatives.
Maybe 15 to 25% tops.
I would say the vast majority of people are good, however people are flawed so a lot of people are bad at being good.
This is pretty close to my answer. I feel bad for the people who don't think their friends would drive them to the hospital if they were dying.
That type of betrayal is actually so common that there is a term for it, look up "cancer ghosting". A lot of people wouldn't believe in it until it happens to them.
Until recently I would have said 0%, but probably 95% of my current friends would rush me to a hospital (if it was physically possible) the other 5% are perpetually busy and would probably find someone who could.
Why the drastic change?
I found a group of people who actually give a fuck about each other. I am never letting them go. They are stuck with me now.
I love my mom.
Are you implying she's the only one you trust or did you just feel like announcing that
I designate all folks as good folks. Even with the whole 'every action is inherently selfish' worldview that I have. I think most anyone close to me, and anyone nearby with free time would rush me to the hospital.
Though, I think leaving me to die is fair and wouldn't make someone a bad person. I am only the center of my universe.
I'd imagine that that point of designating good and bad people is to decide where to put your effort. Who to try and support. Maybe to decide who to keep in your life. I'd say that can be done just fine without labeling folks as "bad people".
I worry folks will dehumanize and become a bit too negligent of the experiences of "bad people". "Bad people" just means "contradictory and offensive culture" in most cases.
Percentage is an odd way to measure it. I'm sure I've met thousands of people but would know scores who would rush me to hospital if I needed it as per your example. Still a pretty small percentage.
I think most of my friends and even acquaintances would rush me to a hospital.
I think more than 50% of the people I know would do that.
Regarding genuinely good and trusting my life, that would would be smaller.
A question on the other view tho:
Would you(not OP only) be that genuinely good person for someone? As a guess, in your view how many people would see you like that?
I think only my family and maybe close friends would see me like that.
Regarding getting people to a hospital, I think the 50% stuff would apply to me too.
I unfortunately would help out 99% of people
Those are 2 different questions with 2 different answers.
First one, maybe 25%.
Second one, maybe 2%.
I don’t really consider rushing someone to a hospital as an especially high bar for genuinely good person. Seems more like the bar for not being a genuinely bad person. Not sure if that means that I’m positive or negative about humanity.
I think it's dangerous to consider anyone to be a fundamentally good person or a fundamentally bad person. It's impossible to know what someone is internally and I am not a believer in determinism. Every person is complex and capable of good and evil acts depending on their circumstances.
Especially when you live in a cutthroat competitive culture in which what little to win is jealously guarded by narcissistic psychopaths, many people understand at least on some level that public behavior is a performance intended to reap rewards rather than an honest presentation of oneself. Good and evil is inapplicable here. Our system is amoral, and we human animals are just going to do what we consider to be a good idea at a time and only a few of us really consider the ethics of what we're going to do before we do it, and the few of us capable of that only do it some of the time.
Someone can do the right thing for the right reasons, the right thing for the wrong reasons, the wrong thing for the right reasons, or the wrong things for the wrong reasons. I can never know their internal part, just base my expectations on how their behavior effects me and others. I wouldn't trust anyone until I consider them to be trustworthy, though I can't expect to always be right about that either.
Genuinely good person : 99% Trust with my life : 10%
The main issue about the second thing is that I wouldn’t expect someone I barely know to risk their life for me. I don’t think this makes them bad people, though. I think it’s reasonable.
You truly believe nearly all people you've met are good hearted? I'd like to move there!
That is very hard to asses. I prefer to look it like this, what chances is that you will find a partner (like for marry to) out of 100 or so. I do believe, if given equal chance of interaction, you could find a marrying-material partner every 7 or 8 people. Now, in a world of plenty of choices, biases etc, we shuffle through hundreds of people before settling with one... and, even then, still unhappy with the choice for the people we haven gone through yet in our search. Now, that is for me... Chances is you would choose a different person out of these very same 7 to 8 people. Both chosen persons have the same chance of being equally good persons, as the non chosen ones.
There are no good or bad people.
Can you tell me why you believe serial killers are neither good or bad
Ah yes, John Wayne Gacy, what a terrible loss for society! /s
The fuck out of here, you dumbass.
I didn't say people didn't do bad things and make bad choices. I'm sorry you're not able to understand that.