It's only with life experience that you get a "source" for general ideas about life and people. The idea of a "source" for a world view of philosophical perspective is contradictory.

Those who will take action based on a moral conviction, which doesn't have any discernible benefit for themselves or for the people they care about, are few between. And fewer yet in the world of academia and distribution of public funds. I wouldn't make my original comment if the topic was about a different sector.

Make your own observations about people and you will come to your own conclusions. What I've seen is that people might be idealistic when they are young, but when they're old enough to actually make a real difference, then very few will keep any convictions instead of putting them on the shelf and focusing on personal benefit. I refer to actions which truly make a difference in day-to-day life. Not voting, putting your name on a list, protesting or such.

> Maybe you've lived your life surrounded by terrible people who genuinely wouldn't help someone else more often than not.

This doesn't really apply to the people we surround ourselves with, as we all choose to surround ourselves with those people who treat us well. And there's benefit in helping your friends and family. Now consider somebody the handling the benefits payments of people completely unknown to her, who are just names in a database.

Since you sincerely want to have a productive conversation, I would like to give two different reflections on humanity, they a little bit of two sides of the same coin.

One is that you should never judge yourself by how others judge you. But most people make this mistake. It's natural, since children grow up in some kind of stable "community". The problem with this is that most people do not have enough experience together with you to make any sort of judgement, it's usually mostly from gossip and prejudice. It leads to a lot of unnecessary frustration among the youth to have to struggle with this, and unlearning this usually only comes with experience of being an adult. Because once you get older you have already met and dealt with so many people in life that you know that how they treat you says nothing about you and everything about them as individuals.

The other reflection is a flip on the golden rule. "Treat others as you wish to be treated", but this doesn't cut it anymore in modern times because very many people see themselves merely as numbers for the government, so they want to be treated like shit by their superiors and want to treat those below them as shit.

I say instead "Treat others as if they are the best". Especially when employing young people I've used this rule. Meaning, I will treat them as if they are honest, hard-working, reliable and intelligent. Because they will then automatically behave that way. Usually nobody has ever treated them like that before, so they greatly enjoy it. I think it's completely subconscious, people will fall into a role, especially when they're young.

This is why schools and academia is so utterly destructive, because they baby young adults and hinder them from maturing and becoming the best that they can be. A lot of work places do this as well. How can you as an employer demand that your employees should be responsible and hard-working, if you make up rules and such that clearly shows that you don't think so?

Treating people as if they're the best also means that you really quickly can identify out those who are not up to it.

I have to stop now because I'm ranting, but it's all connected.