Most people are good

I would like to think that of all of the people I have ever encountered in my life — most of them are good people.

What I mean by that is that most people, generally speaking, do not have bad intentions. Is this me being naive? Should I assume the opposite? Should I assume that most people are bad and only a few are good?

I think that my, more “optimistic view point” about humanity holds the following: people are good. Environments are bad. Circumstances are bad. Incentives are bad. Conditions are bad.

Is that a fair argument?

I strongly believe in the idea that incentives can fundamentally change people. I would like to write a longer essay on this, but I wholly subscribe to the idea (at least lately) that the world is made up of different types of incentives. People do things because of social, economic, biological and political reasons.

Take those away.

And I would still think that most people are, by default, good people.

I think at the same time, very few are really great. Most our mediocre.

But no one wants to think that they are mediocre.

Originally published at gonen.blog.