How many bad people are there?

DaveC426913 said:
I'm too lazy to research it merely for curiosity.
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at least you're honest. LOL

DaveC426913 said:
More of a discussion point to help me potentially reset my expectations of the world, after seeing those videos of porch thieves that circulated recently.
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I'm a former Investigator and Firefighter, so on the one hand, I worked with some of the best people you can imagine.
on the other hand, I've see some of the most horrific sh*t you can imagine
I'm a peripheral optimist: I'm optimistic about the future, but only way off to one side ...
 
DaveC426913 said:
No. That's the point of this. There are people who do the right thing even when no one's watching.
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methinks Gawdzilla Sama has a legitimate point, though.
sometimes "bad" is entirely situational and dependent on the culture, person, timing, awareness and the probability that they'll get away with a (the) "bad" act.

it is definitely within us all to be "bad", IMHO

EDIT:
anecdote: I would never steal a UPS or postal delivery. I've picked up $20 that I found in the parking lot of the post office and turned it in. however, I have also appropriated government materials (Drop tank, old D/C'ed hose, SCBA tank and P-19, De-Icer truck) to build a hot tub so that us firefighters could enjoy a relaxing soak with bubbles one winter while deployed... is that "bad"? yes, according to the 1Sgt and Commander... No, according to my Fire Chief, who just wanted his turn in the hot tub and outranked them both.
END EDIT
 
Truck Captain Stumpy said:
methinks Gawdzilla Sama has a legitimate point, though.
sometimes "bad" is entirely situational and dependent on the culture, person, timing, awareness and the probability that they'll get away with a (the) "bad" act.
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I wasn't asking about bad situations.

If someone doesn't steal merely because of those factors, it follows that they will steal if those factors are in their favour.

So, I was asking: If the opportunity presents itself (meets your criteria) how many people would commit the theft?
 
DaveC426913 said:
So, I was asking: If the opportunity presents itself (meets your criteria) how many people would commit the theft?
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well... IMHO, 95% (+/- 5%) of "otherwise perfectly law-abiding citizens are one opportunity away from a crime", especially if the opportunity meets their criteria and there is no chance of being caught.

but if we go with the "Amazon leaves a package on your doorstep" scenario, I think between 7% and 25% of people will commit the crime, depending on the time of year, location, and some other factors (just a belief based on looking at crime statistics, altruism/altruistic punishment/cooperation studies, general crime averages and the above linked study presented, etc)
 
iceaura said:
He finds wide variance in behavior between different cultures.
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I would like to agree here. Such things depend in a heavy way on the local culture and the difference can be quite large.

In general, I would also say that in most of cultures the majority of people behave in a more or less moral way. I'm now traveling many years around the world, and as a foreigner, I'm a straightforward potential victim for cheating and so on, and have been cheated, but these were only rare exceptions. This includes some agreements in completely corrupt countries - to pay a bribe is a sort of contract too, but whenever I was forced to pay a bribe, the corresponding implicit contract was fulfilled, despite my complete inability to enforce this. So, even criminals tend to fulfill contracts.
 
Albania's national bankruptcy via pyramid schemes, Greece's de facto culture of governmental corruption, and the former Confederacy's political dominance by the KKK in the 1900s, all involved complicity in a majority of the population. So did Trump's election in 2016, and W's re-election in 2004.

That does not make all those people "bad" - granted that circumstances can induce bad behavior in almost anyone, there is a difference between those who deliberately avoid and those who deliberately arrange such circumstances, and having them arranged by others mitigates the guilt of the wrongdoer in some sense.

There almost certainly is, for example, some small but definite percentage of people prone to molest children who deliberately avoid abetting their perversion - who avoid, rather than arrange, jobs and social circumstances that would provide opportunity, who live their entire lives without molesting a single child because they discipline themselves to avoid the temptation.

Those are good people in some sense, surely? Even though they are always just a step away from doing rank evil.
 
iceaura said:
Those are good people in some sense, surely? Even though they are always just a step away from doing rank evil.
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To be clear to y'all: my thread was not intended to address the broad philosophical question of bad vs not bad. And the 6 word title doesn't define the question or the terms it uses.

The question is the scenario: how many people steal the package? - and I use that as a rough litmus test of (a particular flavour of) bad (knowing the limitations of the scenario).
 
It's ok if others do it.
We all know Big companies hide the not so good parts about their products or services in small print or make it not so obvious there are surcharges or worst regular surcharges?
Is it really down to little old ladies and grandads to be expected to read and understand a sheet of small print?
Would you say all employees of those companies are bad?
It's not that the employees don't know this, they can read the ''sales blur'' for their company products or services and the small print.
Why would ''good'' people go into work daily for these kind of company policies?
Does this become a numbers game that makes it ok because thousands of people do this daily?
 
offered IMHO ...
foghorn said:
It's ok if others do it.
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no, it's not - this is a point I've made here on this site (in a discussion about the definition of "illegal")
eg. Rape - it's still not OK just because everyone else in a gang does it
foghorn said:
Is it really down to little old ladies and grandads to be expected to read and understand a sheet of small print?
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It's more about the responsibility of the purchaser, buyer or user to take the time to know WTF is going on, IMHO. (eg. ignorance of the law is no excuse)
it reminds me of some strange warning labels ...
stupid_warning_labels_12.jpg
 
again: offered IMHO only
DaveC426913 said:
To be clear to y'all: my thread was not intended to address the broad philosophical question of bad vs not bad. And the 6 word title doesn't define the question or the terms it uses.

The question is the scenario:
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the question leading people to read the thread is misleading, really (kinda like clickbait) - the scenario should have been the title, IMHO, because you really can't address the question of "How many bad people are there?" without addressing the definition of "bad". the term "bad" isn't the same thing as the term "illegal" which has a clear, concise definition that allows you to objectively state something is illegal (see link).

 
Truck Captain Stumpy said:
again: offered IMHO only
the question leading people to read the thread is misleading, really (kinda like clickbait) - the scenario should have been the title
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I don't think it's too much to ask that people actually read the opening post, and not just respond directly to the subject line.
 
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