I don’t believe a significant percentage of people is innately evil, and at the end of part I of this post, I don’t think you’ve given me significant evidence to chance my mind. The study is not convincing, and not because of effect size—people could have misunderstood the game or just pressed the red button for fun since we’re talking about cents. I would have predicted few people to press the red button if the payouts were significant (thinking at least 100$ difference); I genuinely don’t know what I would have predicted for the game as-is.
there are many, many, MANY more pieces of evidence from (almost) every internet troll, bully, and rapist, and many other criminals too.
I mean, rape has a pretty obvious advantage for the rapist. “Troll” is so overloaded that I think you’d have to define it before I can consider it seriously for anything. Bullying is the most convincing case, but my model of bullies, especially if they’re young, isn’t that they’re innately evil. If I remember correctly, I have participated in bullying a couple of times before thinking about it and deciding that it’s morally indefensible. I imagine most bullies are similar except that they skipped the part where they think about it, or that they have thought about it, maybe decided to stop, but then proceeded anyway because the instinct was too strong.
Anyway, this is quite speculative, but my point is that I don’t think you’re making a strong case for your leading claim. I realize that this may come across as nitpicking details in a mountain of obvious evidence, but that’s often just how it feels like if someone doubts what you consider an obvious truth.
There’s also an issue that we may have different ideas of what ‘innately evil’ means.
I don’t believe a significant percentage of people is innately evil, and at the end of part I of this post, I don’t think you’ve given me significant evidence to chance my mind. The study is not convincing, and not because of effect size—people could have misunderstood the game or just pressed the red button for fun since we’re talking about cents. I would have predicted few people to press the red button if the payouts were significant (thinking at least 100$ difference); I genuinely don’t know what I would have predicted for the game as-is.
I mean, rape has a pretty obvious advantage for the rapist. “Troll” is so overloaded that I think you’d have to define it before I can consider it seriously for anything. Bullying is the most convincing case, but my model of bullies, especially if they’re young, isn’t that they’re innately evil. If I remember correctly, I have participated in bullying a couple of times before thinking about it and deciding that it’s morally indefensible. I imagine most bullies are similar except that they skipped the part where they think about it, or that they have thought about it, maybe decided to stop, but then proceeded anyway because the instinct was too strong.
Anyway, this is quite speculative, but my point is that I don’t think you’re making a strong case for your leading claim. I realize that this may come across as nitpicking details in a mountain of obvious evidence, but that’s often just how it feels like if someone doubts what you consider an obvious truth.
There’s also an issue that we may have different ideas of what ‘innately evil’ means.