People are good... in Japan!!!

[iqqi]

Loot in the mailbox...

TOKYO (AFP) - An unemployed man in Japan had an unexpected windfall in his mailbox when he found one million yen (10,000 dollars) in cash from an anonymous benefactor, police said Friday.

The 61-year-old man discovered the wad of cash last week along with a slip of paper with the message, "Please make use of this in your everyday life," written with a black ballpoint pen.

But instead of following the advice, the jobless man in the ancient capital of Nara in western Japan turned over the gift to police.

The sender has until June 27 to claim the money or the unemployed man will get it.

Along with the letter, the envelope contained a partial photocopy of a map of nearby Osaka without any address marked or further explanation.

"He has absolutely no clue who it is," a police official said.

Japan has seen a string of cases in which large sums of cash have been left anonymously in people's mailboxes or public restrooms.

The largest single drop-off so far was in the city of Kyoto last year, astonishing a 67-year-old woman who found an envelope containing 10 million yen of stacked bills in her mailbox.​

I am DEFINATELY thinking about relocating!!!

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

People are so good here they email their moms before they go on planned killing sprees.


http://www.japantoday.com/category/...-stabbing-spree-told-mother-of-plans-in-email

 

[SmoothTalker]

Well there's psycho's everywhere... at least he has good relations with his parents. Lots of kids around here hate theirs.

 

[KontrollerX]

Yep.

People are so good they'll give a ton of money away.

Why?

Oh yeah thats right because it makes them feel good which means their action of giving away the money was motivated by self interest ie selfishness.

If the person could not obtain a good feeling from giving the money away it would of stayed tucked safely in his or her vault.

Ooh darn not so good after all.

Nice try though!

 

[SmoothTalker]

You know, using that thinking it's possible to prove EVERYBODY is a selfish prick. Try to look on the good side of things once in a while.

Sure they are getting a positive feeling from giving away money, but you'd get a pretty good feeling taking it to a fancy store/car dealership/on vacation/whatever, and they are doing an action that will help someone else instead.

It's not a uniquely Japanese thing, but I dont think anyone giving away money with no strings attached should be considered selfish.

PS: This is assume it's just some rich guys, if the money came from some illegal source and they're trying to get rid of the evidence or something, that's different..

 

[KontrollerX]

The point isn't to prove everyone is a selfish pr!ck the point is to do away with this notion that humans are either one religious term or another inherintely ie good or bad.

Humans simply are selfish creatures that don't do a single thing outside of self interest in one way or another.

Some may see this as a depressing view.

I simply see it as reality without the rose colored glasses on.

 

[ketostix]

Yep.

People are so good they'll give a ton of money away.

Why?

Oh yeah thats right because it makes them feel good which means their action of giving away the money was motivated by self interest ie selfishness.

If the person could not obtain a good feeling from giving the money away it would of stayed tucked safely in his or her vault.

Ooh darn not so good after all.

Nice try though!

C'mon Kontroller we've been through this argument on here. Can't you distinquish between a person feeling good about doing something beneficial to someone else, and a person feel good doing something harmful to someone else. The former is being good and the latter is being bad. Besides, you can't say for a fact that someone never does something out of conviction and sacrifice and doesn't feel good about it. You can say, "Well they did it to appease their guilt.." or whatever but that's not always true.

 

[ketostix]

The point isn't to prove everyone is a selfish pr!ck the point is to do away with this notion that humans are either one religious term or another inherintely ie good or bad.

Humans simply are selfish creatures that don't do a single thing outside of self interest in one way or another.

Some may see this as a depressing view.

I simply see it as reality without the rose colored glasses on.

Yes that's human nature, but knowing this there's no reason to believe that a person has no control in going against this nature. Besides, there's degrees of selfishness and fairness. There's a such thing as a fair and win/win exchange. I do agree that people primarily act selfishly and out of self-interest. I guess we just disagree on this point. I don't think we disagree on too much else though.

 

[HandyAndy]

There was a real story like this. A man walked into a bar or restaurant and went up to a couple eating. He handed them a check book and said "write any amount you want" the couple wrote 100,000 dollars because they thought it was a joke. They take the check and end up cashing it in to see if its legit and it is. Free 100k. Awesome

 

[Phyzzle]

Philosophy time

The point is to do away with this notion that humans are either one religious term or another inherintely ie good or bad.

You are using some unconventional definition of 'good'. You are redefining the word 'good' so that it cannot possibly apply to anyone ever. Then, you are concluding that no one can be good. But your definition is just not the same as the average person's.

An action can be good or bad. A person who does many good things is conventionally called good. Having some if-then idea in my head about "if I do a good act, I may feel better," does not make a good act less good.

Humans simply are selfish creatures that don't do a single thing outside of self interest in one way or another.

Again, I think you're redefining every possible action as selfish, and this usage of the word selfish isn't a very convenient one because it doesn't explain anything, or really define anything. It's just an extraneous little tag stuck to every action. Might as well not even use the word at all.

Here's a quote from elsewhere:

The major issue I have with the idea that all motivations are selfish, is that in the end, the chain of reasoning that leads to that has a tendency to be somewhat tautological.

Mother throws her self in front of a car to protect child
Why did mother do that?
Because she wants to protect the child.
Why does she want to protect the child?
Because she loves the child?
Why does she love the child?
Because it makes her feel good?
Why does it make her feel good?
Because she loves the child?
Why does she love the child <so on ad nausea>

Which is all good and well, but at the point the tautology creeps in, it loses all possible explanatory powers.

 

[TheHumanist]

The point isn't to prove everyone is a selfish pr!ck the point is to do away with this notion that humans are either one religious term or another inherintely ie good or bad.

Humans simply are selfish creatures that don't do a single thing outside of self interest in one way or another.

Some may see this as a depressing view.

I simply see it as reality without the rose colored glasses on.

Not this again, it seems every thread that have "people are good" always ended up in a large discussion around this subject. Last time I read this, I just let it **** with me head into a more cynical viewpoint. This time I outright must disagree, not because I disagree people are not self-interested or even selfish, but because actions do create positive and negative results. Positive and negative reactions maybe based on perspective as many have pointed out (making a point that good and bad are relative to the person), but positive and negative (there's is a reason but I'm saying positive and negative instead of good and bad BTW) results does apply to larger than per individual. That means that what is positive for one is many times postive for many and vice versa.

You know, I'm really tired of hearing that counter argument of "oh, I'm not being pessimistic or even realistic, I'm just seeing for the way things is." Ever notice that saying "seeing the way things is" means that not seeing it that way have to be not seeing the way thing is, meaning it have to be rose color glasses (binary thinking, perhaps, but what's the middle ground, less rose colored?).


I went of from posting for a while because I went on to Alternate Spring Break that was offered from my school, choosing to do community service with other people instead of taking the week off to relax or party like others. When I left, I have gain a cynical view from this site that dismisses the action of the postive and good. That even when a person take the time to do good, in my heart I want to say it is good, in my mind I just say he is just following what programmed him.

Then I met people that I must take from that experience that there is value in good actions. Just because it may or may not be self based does not dismiss the fact that their actions does not help others and to help others is good. The problem is just saying people are people and there is no good or bad is that it dismissed that there are actions that is better than the other. A man who take his time to help other is good, a man who want to take interests in others is good, a man who choose the beneficial but less than taking the most selfish action which is more beneficial is good. Their intention may never be fully selfless, but it does not dismisses the value of the action.

 

[LoneSilver]

Thanks Iggi for sharing... that was a neat story..

LoneSilver

 

[ketostix]

You are using some unconventional definition of 'good'. You are redefining the word 'good' so that it cannot possibly apply to anyone ever. Then, you are concluding that no one can be good. But your definition is just not the same as the average person's.

An action can be good or bad. A person who does many good things is conventionally called good. Having some if-then idea in my head about "if I do a good act, I may feel better," does not make a good act less good.



Again, I think you're redefining every possible action as selfish, and this usage of the word selfish isn't a very convenient one because it doesn't explain anything, or really define anything. It's just an extraneous little tag stuck to every action. Might as well not even use the word at all.

Here's a quote from elsewhere:

Well put. This could apply to many concepts. People will use a definition that is nonstandard and then create a tautology. Now I agree that, for example, simply giving away money doesn't automatically mean someone is good or it turns out to be a good deed in the end. But taken on its face it is a good deed. Now even if you're going to determine something on it's motivation, if doing X gives the actor a good feeling and also benefits the other party involved that's a good thing as opossed to a bad thing in my view.

 

[penkitten]

i thought it was a wonderful story too thanks for posting it

 

[BluEyes]

The point isn't to prove everyone is a selfish pr!ck the point is to do away with this notion that humans are either one religious term or another inherintely ie good or bad.

Humans simply are selfish creatures that don't do a single thing outside of self interest in one way or another.

Some may see this as a depressing view.

I simply see it as reality without the rose colored glasses on.

I think you're taking this one step too far.

Sure, I agree that you can view this as a truth and one cannot disprove it easily, but...

How does this truth have value to you? What does one gain from knowing this? I would argue that people would be better off NOT digging that deep into human nature, and instead accepting that there are "good people".

In my life, I will gain more value from this belief rather than from the supposed 'truth' which has NO intrinsic value.

Here is some food for thought: Why is it better to view the world WITHOUT 'rose-colored glasses' if what you see(raw reality) does not help you live a fulfilling life?

Just something to think about.

 

[KontrollerX]

"How does this truth have value to you? What does one gain from knowing this? I would argue that people would be better off NOT digging that deep into human nature, and instead accepting that there are "good people".

In my life, I will gain more value from this belief rather than from the supposed 'truth' which has NO intrinsic value."

You would argue from how you see my view such as to you it is depressing.

To me it is powering and freeing.

To me I get comfort from embracing reality as much as possible.

We're just different in this way I spose.

"Here is some food for thought: Why is it better to view the world WITHOUT 'rose-colored glasses' if what you see(raw reality) does not help you live a fulfilling life?

Just something to think about."

You're making assumptions.

For me living without rose colored glasses and instead seeing reality for what it is has helped me the most to live a fulfilling life.

Its part of the reason that I love this place so much.

This whole Sosuave message board community is about embracing the raw reality of life.

I can understand posters getting some emotional comfort over believing humans are inherintly good to give them that warm fuzzy feeling when they go to sleep at night but for me that thought is false and wouldn't comfort me at all to embrace.

I think most in this thread on a logical level believe as I do but on an emotional one they are fighting against fully accepting it.

Thats cool though.

Different strokes for different folks.

While the people are good side rests comfortably tonight dreaming of chocolates and rainbows I'll make sure my doors are locked and handgun is loaded and in place to take out any son of a b!tch that thinks they can take my life or my stuff before I too dream of those same chocolates and rainbows.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

How about this question:

This "newfound" money has been going on for a while in Japan, but the interesting thing is that most people (likem more than 80%) dutifully return the money to the police. Even in cases when NOBODY saw them find it.

Why?

 

[ChrizZ]

How about this question:

This "newfound" money has been going on for a while in Japan, but the interesting thing is that most people (likem more than 80%) dutifully return the money to the police. Even in cases when NOBODY saw them find it.

Why?

Social conditioning 101.

Serve society first before you serve yourself.

 

[Mr.Positive]

To me I get comfort from embracing reality as much as possible.

We're just different in this way I spose.

"Here is some food for thought: Why is it better to view the world WITHOUT 'rose-colored glasses' if what you see(raw reality) does not help you live a fulfilling life?

It's important to embrace reality, however my reality may be seen from a different perspective than yours.

I believe most people are good, and do good things. This has been my experience.

This reminds of when, about a year ago, I found a wallet while walking to my car in some parking lot. I remember picking up the wallet, looking around, and see nobody around. So, I opened up the wallet, no identification, a few misc cards and some cash.

I walked around the parking lot looking for someone who would appear looking for a missing wallet. I came across a security guard and told the security guard I had found a wallet.

As it turns out, the security guard happened to be talking to some frantic teenager, who had happened to lose his wallet. The kid was able to prove the wallet was his by identifying a few things in it, without seeing first, and the security guard gave the kid his wallet.

I remember the kid was absolutely overjoyed about getting his wallet back. He even offered me money, which I refused.

I'll admit, I did enjoy seeing how happy this kid was, and how getting his wallet back made his day.

Why did I return this? Was there a selfish motive behind it? The main reason was because I felt it was the right thing to do. Furthermore, I remember many years back, when I was about this kid's age, I had lost MY wallet, and some good citizen returned it to me.

And so the cycle continues...perhaps this kid will find a wallet one day, and remember when someone returned his. There is a lot of people doing good things, that have similar stories...

and that my friend, IS reality, IMO.

So, thanks for sharing this story iqqi.

 

[Mandiblard]

One way to look at the difference between a "good" or "bad" person is whether they are productive or destructive.