I read a post on Askreddit that inquired, “what are some completely legal things that make you a terrible human being.” Among the top comments were answers like, standing in the middle of an aisle, not flushing the toilet, or not putting things back where you found them in the grocery store. All these comments had 5 digit upvotes. Are these things somewhat inconsiderate and annoying? Yes. Do they make you a terrible person? No. I feel like these people who view these actions as “terrible” are just looking for any way to feel validated in their perceived moral superiority by barely doing anything at all. They think “I don’t stand in people’s way, I flush the toilet, I put grocery items back where I found them, I’m a good person and other people are bad”. It honestly feels somewhat masturbatory. I think you can do inconsiderate things and even have committed crimes and still be a good person, if you were perfect you wouldn’t be human. I can pick apart someone’s every action and try to place them neatly into the categories of “good” and “bad” but it probably wouldn’t make me any better as a person.
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It’s so annoying how black and white everyone is. There a very few people who are definitely evil and definitely good
Stay away from the summoner! You’re a bad man!
I think you’re right. It’s hard to just be a good, decent, or average person who makes mistakes or has flaws.
The world is full of decent people who sometimes do shitty things. There are also cultural factors at play, such as people who have been brought up or manipulated to have racist or sexist attitudes.
However, I do believe there is a very small subset of people who are just bad people. Typically these are people who can’t take any responsibility for their mistakes, and blame others for their shortcomings. I think I’ve probably met maybe 4-5 people like this in my lifetime.
these things **by themselves** don’t make one a terrible person. But if that’s how they behave in these places I don’t have high expectations of them anywhere else.
People are very quick with judgement nowadays. I think you’re right, OP. People like to call others terrible people as a way to feel secure in themselves. “Oh. I’ll just be the 176th person today to call them out for doing it. That’ll totally make up for my shortcomings.”
it’s so true, I rarely think anyone is good or bad.
Bad person vs. terrible person is two different things. If you want to know what makes someone abhorrent, then ask for extremes.
However, I would say bad people are those that are inconsiderate of other people – often manifested as many small inconvenient deeds.
It’s moreso that these things that seem small in perspective are actually easy indicators to tell about someone’s character.
Most well known example is the “shopping cart theory” which can tell you all about someone in 95%(made up) of the cases.
Also can see it in drivers who sit in the number one lane and say “they can go around me” instead of following driver ethics like moving over to a slower lane.
They all generally relate back to self-awareness, selfishness, and self-centeredness. Additionally, these people are very transactional and ask what do they gain from doing these things…which loops back to those three characteristics I just listed.
Everyone can be made to be a bad person if you want to.
Good or bad is entirely subjective, as is your assessment of people who use it too loosely. (as is my opinion here)
Real humans are complicated and contradictory, even the best among us. The Internet, specifically Reddit, is incapable of applying any sort of nuance to anything.
Sure, standing in the aisle not that big of the deal. But I absolutely disagree about flushing the toilet. It literally takes 2 seconds to turn around when you’re done in flush. If you’re so inconsiderate that you can’t even do that for other people then yes you are a bad person.
Everybody’s a bad person and everyone’s a good person. It’s just how much of the good and how much of the bad that you have that makes you who you are.
People have become empathetic to a degree that it’s losing its meaning… and comes with judgment and categorization that may not even be accurate or possible. Look around Reddit and you see all over in no context one side only stories people calls each other good/bad, narcissist/abusive/victim etc so easily. If you say even some nuance you can get attacked… Hopefully it will become more balanced
Conversely, so many more people are comfortable with being publicly shitty than was the case 10-15 years ago that the indicators have become very apparent.
I agree with your point; I’ll also say though that people exaggerate on Reddit to grandstand. I doubt most of the people who upvoted comments that OP mentioned genuinely feel like standing in the middle of an aisle truly makes someone a “bad person.” They just want people to stop standing in the middle of aisles and feel that contributing to the discourse makes some kind of difference in people standing in aisles.
Its hyperbole
They’re probably joking.
There are a lot of bad people, and it’s correct to acknowledge them
It’s called “exaggeration”
Yes!
Respect is the validation of human existence. Without it, we are lost consciousness
The level of ineptitude is based on the severity of the disrespect. Not flushing a toilet is rude but somewhat acceptable. Leaving items in random locations at grocery stores could be considered awful, but really, no one is harmed by it, and it gives an employee of the store a task to be completed
I knew a guy that would discard household items by leaving them on property that he deemed could afford to pay someone to remove it. His stance was that he was helping the economy by creating work for someone
Instead of “bad person,” we should use “asshole” or “douche bag” for those minor actions instead.
Upvote, because it is unpopular, but I disagree entirely.
I think we, as a society, are becoming more conscious of the healthy ways we are supposed to be treating each other and calling out the unhealthy ways. Which unfortunately means, we see more bad.
We are growing and becoming more respectful.
The irony is that making someone out to be a bad person based on an annoying habit they have is more indicative than someone is a judgemental, holier-than-,thou asshole
Small flaws or bad choices in the moment don’t make anyone a bad person overall, of course. But at the same time a lot of behaviors don’t happen in a vacuum and can definitely be symptoms of behavioral patterns by individuals, which in turn reveal someone’s attitudes and personality. In other words, people tend to behave similarly from one day to the next or in recurring situations. So their behavior IS a sign of their personality to a degree.
Things like not returning the shopping cart or standing in the middle of an exit door and not realizing you’re blocking the way can sometimes just be a momentary thing (e.g. because the person’s distracted or something), but often with human beings their behavior reflects on attitudes such as entitlement or being self-centered / inconsiderate. I read that other thread and thought the top-voted comments were mostly examples of people behaving in selfish/inconsiderate ways, which in many cases does mean that the person overall lacks consideration for others and can therefore be placed a bit higher on the spectrum of “bad person.”
Or maybe there’s just a larger amount of shitty, selfish people than ever before?
Counterpoint: Hyperbole exists
When I was a child, I was told to act my age. As an adult, I’m shocked at how many grown people never matured emotionally past childhood. Your actions determine whether you’re a good or bad person, not your intentions.
Many people believe that if you behave outside of societal norms, you’re a “bad” person. Because you don’t put the effort to conform, or worse, you reject the norms. Whether it’s entering an elevator full of people and directly facing them, or not giving your seat up for women on a packed train.
If your argument is that they “barely do anything”, conformity itself isn’t necessarily an easy task. You need to consciously become aware that such a norm exists, and then potentially alter your own behaviours or beliefs to fit that norm.
This is probably a “good” opinion for you to have, but I will never be convinced that people that leave their shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot are good. Or people that take phone calls in public on speaker phone. Or people who hang out in the passing lane while driving. Or people who block gas pumps to go inside the store and shop. Etc.
Anyone who lives their lives oblivious to their impact on others is frankly hard for me to consider anything but bad (on some level).
It all started with Mickael Jackson
Welcome to reddit
Monster is overused as well. Everyone is a monster these days when there are true monsters out there.
This goes back to the two original humans living on the planet. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, our eyes opened to what would be considered good and bad.
The internet both loves and despises sarcasm
lol what kind of a psychopath doesn’t flush deliberately?
Those examples themselves don’t make that person bad, but they are an indicator that the person is someone who doesn’t have consideration for those around them, and those types tend to be bad people. They’re selfish and entitled. Good people aren’t selfish and entitled and would think about how their actions are affecting those around them and act accordingly.
This post made me angry. You’re a bad person for posting it!
But I agree. People do things that make no sense, are selfish, etc. but it doesn’t all equate to someone being a bad person. It’s more the severity and frequency of things that do.
Hard disagree. These minor annoyances are like a litmus test to the type of person you are. If you’re the sort of person who lacks the consideration to put your shopping cart back where it lives, which is a very basic thing, it costs you nothing and takes little effort, yet you still don’t do it then it’s unlikely that your laziness and selfishness stops there.
I love being able to judge people’s entire moral character based off of something I saw them do one time, or even better from hearsay on Reddit which has religiously devoted itself to being ignorant.
I think the problem is that a lot of the things that make someone a terrible person actually are illegal in some aspect, or can be interpreted as illegal.
When you remove crime as a criteria for someone being terrible, the bar is significantly lowered
The internet is 90% ridiculous hyperbole, to the extent that these words lose all meaning — see also “communist”, “fascist”, “nazi”, etc etc
Being in the way and not having the decency to flush makes one a bad person. Were you looking for animal abusers or thieves? Those are on another level. A word.