To which I say, pardon my french, fuck that noise. People are entitled to the benefit of doubt only as long as there can be doubt. Once that is gone, act accordingly.
Ditch the toxic people in your life.
A lot of people on HN seem to have grown up in safe, nurturing, loving environments. But, remember that most of the world's people didn't. I don't mean to call you out - just saying that I would love to have had your experiences.
Now I live in a world very similar to the one described by the GP. It took me quite a while to adjust, and I still have my moments.
If you want to understand why someone does what they do, you can’t chalk it up just to “they’re evil” or “they’re crazy”. There’s some reason why they’re doing what they do and to them, they feel like they’re on the right side.
Parents may not express that love all the time, and may even harm their children in spite of it. And they will probably hate themselves after the fact for it.
I was oversimplifying, of course. You can certainly end up with enemies. But your boss didn't start out hiring you because he wanted an enemy. He hired you to do a job.
Intentions don't even matter in such cases. The end result does
I helped me a lot to imagine how she grew up and how she must have felt to be pushed to such extreme measures. I don't say it's easy and I don't say you have to forgive your mother or anything like that. I just wanted to share that trying to forgive my mother actually made me feel better in the long run.
I hope you will be able to sort this out some day. I wish you all the best.
Nope, didn't work, they are just horrible people nobody sane gets anything positive from being around. My husband pointed out that they were a huge negative in my life with no positives and why was I doing that to myself?
I let go and stopped contact with them and it's been one of the best things I've ever done for my overall well-being.
Thank you!
I estimate at least 20% of parents don't love their children, based on my personal experience and observations.
Even if terrible parents who do terrible things actually love their children, it is not like it actually matters. If someone, for example, molests you because they love you, molests you because they hate you, or molests you because they don't have any particular emotion towards you. You still are molested.
But I for example grew up in a society (Eastern Europe before 1989) where my dad had to wake up early at 4.45 or 5AM in order to go the State-owned grocery store, hoping to catch one bottle of milk for child-me out of a limited supply of 100 or 200 bottles (or something like that). That was a hell of a "zero-sum game" (you wake up early and you're lucky, you get a bottle of milk for your kid out of a limited supply, you don't, your kid is out of milk). As such, it's very difficult for me (and close to impossible) not to view the other people as potential adversaries.
In other words, viewpoints like the one you suggest ("everyone else is not an adversary") most probably come from a position of privilege, i.e. of having grown up in a society which afforded itself the luxury of not having everything as a zero-sum game.
But you should assume that someone, in their own mind, thinks they're doing the "right thing".
If you assume people are evil and are motivated by wanting to pursue evil ends, then you're going to have a bad model for predicting them.
Everybody at that store wants to get the milk because in that situation, that's what feels like the right thing to do, all things considered. They're not getting up at 5am to ensure you DON'T have milk. If there weren't milk shortages, they wouldn't be buying it up just to spite you.
Everyone is picking the best option on the internal menu that they see in their mind.
It's simple game theory. The prisoners dilemma has multiple equilibria, but you don't find the optimal one unless you take the less rational choice once in a while.
I also agree it's simple game theory, but ignoring the HN audience for a moment you're probably assuming that the non-zero sum situation will still continue to hold at a society-wide scale for large parts of the world (at least for the "former" Western world).
The present covid crisis has proven that to be false, what with countries/states members of the same political union (the EU, different US States) fighting for limited medical resources in the early stages of the pandemic. We'll probably end up in similar scenarios if and when the climate crisis will worsen, reducing the availability for resources for many of us.
Assuming good faith does have two downsides. Firstly, handling in good faith isn't the same as handling in your best interests. Secondly not all people are handling in good faith, and some collectives are subject to selection bias.
I feel like this is somewhat related to Hanlon's Razor:
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
Maybe the guy driving like an asshole and making a sudden lane change is actually unfamiliar with the area and noticed a bit late that their lane ends or is becoming an exit/turn-only lane.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be adequately explained by opportunity costs.
(Hope I'm not butchering the quote)
I don't think you can assume the average person is honest/transparent. You can't assume the person you're negotiating your salary with is going to tell you if your offer is much too low. You can't assume HR isn't going to lie about the reason the fired somebody. You can't assume the company will give you any heads up if they're thinking about firing you.
A lot of people offering "feedback," especially public, especially if it's negative, are just angry venters. And this goes both directions E.g. Glassdoor.
Not saying it's good to have a chip on your shoulder about any of this, but it definitely shouldn't be swept under the rug.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/23/18192831/c...
Also, the suit with CNN was settled out of court without any disclosure of terms on either side. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/cnn-settles-l...
Oh man, I learned the opposite lesson that changed my life: Sociopaths and psychopaths will not help you because you are not a person in their world but an object that either helps them achieve their goals and can be discarded when your usefulness is expired, or you are an obstacle that needs to be destroyed. Helping you doesn't make them feel good, and they can sleep just fine at night after destroying your world because they have no semblance of empathy.
Find common instances where people regularly abuse power: child abuse, terrible bosses, emotional abuse of a spouse. The most common denominator is that people hurt others because they can, and those who couldn't will claim that they choose not to.
What you're describing happens, but it's not rampant. Paranoia isn't lizard people, it's simply ascribing blame out of fear where it may not exist.
What's best for you is not necessarily what is best for them. They may help you to achieve what's best for both of you, but not what's best for you alone. Those are often not the same things. Assume people are acting in their best interest, not yours.
This. And even people that actually cares about you, could be wrong due to biases, beliefs, etc.
I guess it depends a lot on the type of environment you were raised.
Your parent is not your enemy. Your teacher is not your enemy. Your boss is not your enemy. The other team at work is not your enemy. The corporation is not your enemy. The other political party is not your enemy. Or, more accurately, YOU are not THEIR enemy. At best, you're an NPC in their game. Many of them probably even want to help you, because you are another person in the world, and that feels good.
I take back what I said about this being basic. The first steps (learning your parent, teacher, boss are on your side) is pretty basic. But applying this concept to more complex systems, like corporations and communities, can be pretty advanced. But at the end of the day, what it means is that, most of the time there isn't a conspiracy against you, there are simply incentives that you don't understand.