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One underappreciated difference in worldviews:
When judging other people's virtue (or lack thereof), do you grade on a curve?
For me it's "yes" - I think it's almost-by-definition impossible for 90% of the population to be horrible people
When judging other people's virtue (or lack thereof), do you grade on a curve?
For me it's "yes" - I think it's almost-by-definition impossible for 90% of the population to be horrible people
Whereas by contrast, I notice many others will deem a person horrible for holding a view that's held by, like, 90% the country
... which requires you to believe that 90% of the population are horrible people
... which to me doesn't really make sense
... which requires you to believe that 90% of the population are horrible people
... which to me doesn't really make sense
Notice that I'm not saying I "see the good in" people to a greater degree than others do.
Just that I use the ~median levels of human selfishness, myopia, bigotry, hypocrisy, etc. as a baseline to tell me how harshly to judge a given individual
Just that I use the ~median levels of human selfishness, myopia, bigotry, hypocrisy, etc. as a baseline to tell me how harshly to judge a given individual
Or to put it another way:
This isn't a disagreement over the facts about what people are like
This is a disagreement over *how to feel about* the facts about what people are like
This isn't a disagreement over the facts about what people are like
This is a disagreement over *how to feel about* the facts about what people are like
Or, hmm, I guess it might be more accurate to say it's a disagreement about the proper use of judgmental categories like "lazy" or "selfish" or "despicable"
- I'm saying it doesn't make sense to me to use those words for someone unless they're well below the 50th percentile...
- I'm saying it doesn't make sense to me to use those words for someone unless they're well below the 50th percentile...
... whereas the way I see some people using those words, it seems like they've got an implicit benchmark in their mind, representing how humans *should* be, and they're judging people relative to that. Rather than the median.
