Human nature

[Bramblethorn]

One of the magical things about writing/reading is being able to feel kinship with somebody you've never met and never will.

Great little thread here: https://twitter.com/burnlittlelight/status/882781521374978048

My favorite cuneiform document: the passive-aggressive note from a priestess in Ur to her brother who never chips in for holiday groceries.

...

She goes on to kvetch about how he hasn't sent anything to the temple all year & she always has to cover for him & could he at least try. She continues by noting that their parents are visiting for the new moon festival & they have the ancestor offering to do & she always pays.

Six thousand years. That's, what, three hundred generations? And yet that could be in an advice column today.

 

[Areala-chan]

I remember reading a couple of years ago about how archaeologists had recorded and were working on translating a slew of graffiti samples from an ancient ruin.

Then you go on to read the translations and it's the same stupid crap people write about on walls today: <soandso> has a small dick/is gay/did an extraordinary number of women/took a dump here/has a fucking enormous wang/let <soandso> bugger them repeatedly/etc...

At a certain point you realize a civilization achieves success in spite of its people, not because of them. I'd say your cuneiform document piles on additional evidence that people in general are lazy assholes.

 

[Comentarista82]

agree with Areala-chan

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
--George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

Human nature is inherently lazy on average, which is why you'll see certain generations learn to avoid certain mistakes, progress but then that knowledge lasts only so long then some subsequent generation makes similar mistakes before it learns to correct those in some way.

For modern documentation of this, I recommend reading Dr. Thomas Sowell (my favorite author). This man documents a fact seven ways to Sunday and writes like there's no tomorrow. The best book I've read regarding this is possibly Race and Culture: A World View (1994); the good, bad and the ugly are all there.

 

[Handley_Page]

Please will some0one translate the word KVETCH ?
Thank you

 

[Comentarista82]

Please will some0one translate the word KVETCH ?
Thank you

To complain persistently by whining. Appears to come from Yiddish. First I've heard it and I looking up words.

See listing here.

 

[Handley_Page]

To complain persistently by whining. Appears to come from Yiddish. First I've heard it and I looking up words.

See listing here.

Thank you.

 

[rutger5]

Human nature doesn't change (or improve) just because technology has advanced to where it has. We are the same hairless ape that was sitting by the fire back in the stone age and anything that Herodotus wrote about mankind in his day is just as true today as we sit clutching our smartphones.

To complain persistently by whining. Appears to come from Yiddish. First I've heard it and I looking up words.

See listing here.

I see you are in Texas which is probably why you never heard kvetch before. Around some parts it is quite common. And you are right about Dr. Sowell, not only is he a brilliant writer (who should have won the Nobel prize for economics) but he speaks the king's English perfectly, demonstrating common sense and in plain language all can understand.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Please will some0one translate the word KVETCH ?
Thank you

...did you lose your Google bookmark?

See also whinge, which is very similar (just a bit more peevish) and is a favorite of mine at work.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaints-about-young-people-ruining-everything

I actually agree with some of it - I mean waltzing, good mercy - but even I'm puzzled by the umbrella thing. Still it seems right to ask which of you are using silk umbrellas. Fess up, degenerates.

 

[Bramblethorn]

http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaints-about-young-people-ruining-everything

I actually agree with some of it - I mean waltzing, good mercy - but even I'm puzzled by the umbrella thing. Still it seems right to ask which of you are using silk umbrellas. Fess up, degenerates.

Well, I hadn't been, but now I'm intrigued.

 

[CyranoJ]

There are far too many people playing chess, even today. Quite.

 

[jsmiam]

...And yet that could be in an advice column today.

It could even be an advice column to texters... "ur"...

C?

 

[Hypoxia]

Define "'human nature".
Point to its immutable characteristics.
Provide examples.

 

[Handley_Page]

http://mentalfloss.com/article/52209/15-historical-complaints-about-young-people-ruining-everything

I actually agree with some of it - I mean waltzing, good mercy - but even I'm puzzled by the umbrella thing. Still it seems right to ask which of you are using silk umbrellas. Fess up, degenerates.

I think number 14 (1624) is as true today as it was then.

 

[Comentarista82]

Define "'human nature".
Point to its immutable characteristics.
Provide examples.

Human nature when unchanged (not a product of a person learning and doing differently) prefers to lie when caught in trouble in hopes of avoiding the consequence. Examples too numerous to name--usually even catching a person on video can still yield vehement denials in high school.

Another would be wanting to appear good instead of doing good for the right reason. An example of this would be a cub scout performing a service for the neighbors like always fetching them their paper and mail daily for 2 weeks for a badge as opposed to doing it because it shows concern for them.

 

[RetroFan]

One thing about the strange creatures known as humans is that we are all overwhelmingly attracted to negative things rather than positive things.

For example, if you were waiting at the dentist and there were two entertainment style magazines to read in the waiting room. One promotes an article called 'The 10 Best Sitcoms Ever Made'. The cover of the second magazine promotes 'The 10 Worst Sitcoms Ever Made'. Which do you choose? The answer is obvious.

 

[sr71plt]

One thing about the strange creatures known as humans is that we are all overwhelmingly attracted to negative things rather than positive things.

For example, if you were waiting at the dentist and there were two entertainment style magazines to read in the waiting room. One promotes an article called 'The 10 Best Sitcoms Ever Made'. The cover of the second magazine promotes 'The 10 Worst Sitcoms Ever Made'. Which do you choose? The answer is obvious.

It would probably be the Flossing Effectively magazine because, in reality, that would be the only one in the waiting room.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Define "'human nature".
Point to its immutable characteristics.
Provide examples.

Family arguing about who does what for holiday celebrations. I'm fairly sure many in this thread could provide examples

 

[HandsInTheDark]

One thing about the strange creatures known as humans is that we are all overwhelmingly attracted to negative things rather than positive things.

For example, if you were waiting at the dentist and there were two entertainment style magazines to read in the waiting room. One promotes an article called 'The 10 Best Sitcoms Ever Made'. The cover of the second magazine promotes 'The 10 Worst Sitcoms Ever Made'. Which do you choose? The answer is obvious.

It is. I pull out my phone and read the science section of google news.

Sitcoms? TV in any form? Why? And who has time to care?

(Today's science section was depressing - martian soil is looking too toxic to support vegetation, which probably means we are NEVER getting off this rock.)

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Define "'human nature".
Point to its immutable characteristics.
Provide examples.

Just about everyone thinks cowardice sucks and doesn't want to be one himself.
Just about everyone will resort to a claim of "unfairness" as an argument when things go against them; even people who just moments before were espousing mechanistic determinism.
Just about everyone pities or despises those who cannot or will not love.
Just about everyone will react if a child, at least of their own race, is abused by a stranger right in front of them.

It doesn't matter if these things are wired in or passed down culturally; suppress them with philosophy or torture and they simply pop up again. And of course you can find individual exceptions, but they are so rare they cause widespread comment. "Is he even human?" is the typical response. For a reason. In some cases we even consider them ill - which begs the point that there's something we consider well.

I don't remember who said it, but there's a quote that runs, roughly "If humans have no definition, then there is by definition nothing about them worth defending - they cannot be seen as having value. To be valuable, you must first be something."

 

[Bramblethorn]

It would probably be the Flossing Effectively magazine because, in reality, that would be the only one in the waiting room.

I only read it for the articles.

 

[legerdemer]

Thank you.

A brief detour:

HP, just for kicks, you might check out Leo Rosten's Joy of Yiddish, a very funny classic, at your library or used book store. You'd be surprised how many Yiddish words have been adopted into common English use.

 

[Handley_Page]

This one indicates that the trials of love are not just for the modern sufferer. It was written about 3200 years ago in Egypt:-

Seven days from yesterday I have not seen my beloved,
And sickness has crept over me,
And I have become heavy in my limbs,
And am unmindful of my own body.
If the master-physicians come to me,
My heart has no comfort from their remedies,
And the magicians, no help are they,
My malady is not diagnosed.


Unfortunately, I do not have it in hieroglyph. . .