Why I care less about humans than before 2011

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iamnotaparakeet
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15 Nov 2011, 1:19 pm

Much of this year people have been making slanderous garbage of me online as a way of humor for them. My apartment flooded and when having so much lost and so much mildew to clean up there is not only the mere situation to deal with but also the apartment management pestering my wife and me and then there are other neighbors who complained about the smell of mildew at our door - they having a temporary issue with it and I having to clean up the wreck and loss of property caused by the decades old plumbing. My wife's truck being broken into twice and almost stolen, the ignition system destroyed in the failed attempts of thieves who were trying to hotwire and thankfully failed because they don't have the knowledge or patience to start an old vehicle which often stalls. The person we were paying to take care of my birds neglecting them and attempting to avoid communication once the critters were in their possession. The continued vandalism around where I live. My new neighbors throwing chicken bones on our deck. People yelling about everything in general even in the middle of the night. Some neighbors smoking near our deck which is neither good for my birds, which have hyper-efficient lungs, or for my wife who has only one lung since birth due to her mom smoking when pregnant. People around me constantly trying to scam others. The list could go on indefinitely. I wouldn't mind it if people would stop trying to provide me reasons to hate them for a few months, or at least days, at a time.



WilliamWDelaney
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15 Nov 2011, 5:03 pm

Jeez, I'm glad that People don't know about my neighborhood.



iamnotaparakeet
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15 Nov 2011, 5:12 pm

What, do you live in Ciudad Juarez?



Lecks
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15 Nov 2011, 5:20 pm

You have my sympathy, 'Keet. Kudos on not going Rambo all over your neighbourhood.


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iamnotaparakeet
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15 Nov 2011, 5:22 pm

Lecks wrote:
You have my sympathy, 'Keet. Kudos on not going Rambo all over your neighbourhood.


Thanks Lecks. I have felt like becoming a vigilante at times, but I actually hate death more than I hate incivility.



WilliamWDelaney
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15 Nov 2011, 5:36 pm

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
What, do you live in Ciudad Juarez?
Nah, wouldn't want to. Too much sand. Just a run-down part of Raleigh that quietly rehabilitated after a lot of queers and weirdos moved in and scared away the hoodlums, who largely think we perform satanic rituals here. The only thing our neighborhood is known for is being old. Never trust a neighborhood that has a house in it that was built or modified later than 1935.



iamnotaparakeet
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15 Nov 2011, 7:18 pm

Huh, smart hoodlums.



Cyanide
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16 Nov 2011, 4:22 am

Congratulations... You've learned that people suck!



Gedrene
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16 Nov 2011, 4:54 am

You seem to be under the impression that Standard Humans are somehow naturally empathetic. Let me tell you that empathy is a personality trait and any normal Human Being is only empathetic to the standard that their peers expect, not empathetic naturally.



WilliamWDelaney
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16 Nov 2011, 6:47 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
Huh, smart hoodlums.
Really? Which of us is having trouble getting along with his neighbors again?

Maybe your problem is that you live in a really crappy neighborhood. Usually, crappy neighborhoods are crappy for a reason: the people in them ask a lot out of the world, but they don't want to invest very much in it. They're good at complaining, though.



91
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16 Nov 2011, 8:43 am

@Keet

I am going to be an aspie and have my say.

Deep down I think we all try and transcend one another and the pressures of this life. I personally attempt to live without compromise. I believe that if you create a coherent worldview, orient yourself towards your maker, then you at least have a chance of achieving the sort of transcendence that Kierkegaard talks of as a 'knight of faith'. When one is properly oriented, one is free to act in the right way, to transcend, even if the world just thinks we're Don Quixote, if we have ourselves right, then we are truly alive.

The world is very much now a world built on the values of Nietzche and Sartre. A general sense of nihilism upon which individuals see the assertion of themselves as being the only escape. But it does not work, the crabs always pull one another down when all they see is the bucket. People now days dramatically resist the idea that we need to look outside ourselves in order to be happy. The modern world just does not get it. That in understanding we are less, we gain perspective and we actually become more.


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16 Nov 2011, 9:26 am

iamnotaparakeet wrote:
The list could go on indefinitely.


Leave albuquerque already! :lol:



iamnotaparakeet
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16 Nov 2011, 12:15 pm

Cyanide wrote:
Congratulations... You've learned that people suck!


Yep, and they forever seek to increase the evidence in favor of that theory.



iamnotaparakeet
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16 Nov 2011, 12:26 pm

91 wrote:
@Keet

I am going to be an aspie and have my say.

Deep down I think we all try and transcend one another and the pressures of this life. I personally attempt to live without compromise. I believe that if you create a coherent worldview, orient yourself towards your maker, then you at least have a chance of achieving the sort of transcendence that Kierkegaard talks of as a 'knight of faith'. When one is properly oriented, one is free to act in the right way, to transcend, even if the world just thinks we're Don Quixote, if we have ourselves right, then we are truly alive.

The world is very much now a world built on the values of Nietzche and Sartre. A general sense of nihilism upon which individuals see the assertion of themselves as being the only escape. But it does not work, the crabs always pull one another down when all they see is the bucket. People now days dramatically resist the idea that we need to look outside ourselves in order to be happy. The modern world just does not get it. That in understanding we are less, we gain perspective and we actually become more.


Given the history of people prior to the Enlightenment I would have to say that even without Nietzche and Sartre people have behaved in a similar fashion to how they do nowadays, although without a formalized treatment of it as justification. Further, with the lack of education among so many publicly educated students in America at the least, I would have to suppose that they don't know the philosophies which their behavior matches. It may be ingrained in them indirectly, but I don't believe too many people have formal justifications for why the behave like the plural for the middle English term for a male donkey considered in light of its modern pejorative connotations.



WilliamWDelaney
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16 Nov 2011, 2:29 pm

But the problem is, if people are so evil, why do I see an example, every day, of the people around me being more patient and more considerate toward me than I really deserve for them to be? I see people going out of their way to show me consideration that I feel I often fail to show them every single day.

I'm really just talking about simple social courtesies. Someone might hold a door for me if I'm coming in behind them, or they might slow down to allow me to change lanes. I really take that sort of thing personally, though, and I am very grateful for it. If you showed me the most basic courtesy, that means you thought about someone other than yourself for a half-second. People tell me it's really nothing, but it means a little more to you if it's something you have to work for.

I am inattentive. Sometimes I forget to show little courtesies like that, and sometimes I can be impatient. I'm quite frankly embarrassed over it, and I try my best to improve my behavior. Sometimes I smile at the wrong time when talking to someone, or I cut someone short with one of my Churchillian tirades and only later realize that I'd been an ass. I try, clumsily I admit, to think carefully about the significance of every tiny nuance in what I do. It takes me a lot of vigilance, and it doesn't come to me by reflex the way it seems to for most people.

But in that case, where is all of this evil? Sure, there is evil in the world, and that is inescapable. Sure, people are not always as considerate as they should be: I'm sure not, and I'm sorry for that. However, this isn't to me justification for a sense of loathing toward the human race in general as the OP suggests.



iamnotaparakeet
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16 Nov 2011, 2:37 pm

You can pick examples of people being nice and courteous, putting on a plastered smile while they take your order and listen patiently while you tell them this that or the other so that they don't get threatened with the loss of employment by their managers. There are certainly genuine instances of humans showing kindness to others too. Nicety is nice, yes, but it is difficult to think of the niceties of humans and their random infrequent acts of courteousness when you actually deal with the crap.