Thought Experiment: Why more good than evil, good over evil, good triumphs evil

The age-old question of whether we are born good, evil, or neutral is one that we ask ourselves some time in our lives as we attempt to figure out who we are and understand others. Depending on what recently occurred, I have swung through each of the options in the past.

For a long while, I have believed that the question is not really a valid question because it was too muddled by what each term meant. Somethings are good to some, evil to others, and lastly the rest do not care at all. But because of all the superhero movies that have been coming out for the last decade, this has gotten me to thinking why does "good" triumph over "evil".

And in my limited reality, I feel that people are good. There is a lot evil events in the world, but when compared to the mass of the people, it really is the smaller percentage. But even then, I think people want to be good so there are even fewer people who are evil to be evil.

I think this is evolutionary because it is easier to survive by being good even though sometimes we believe that good people finish last, but rather good people stay alive whether it is physical, financial, or social. It is easier to be good because we do not have to put as much effort in being helpful to others than being evil.

To be evil takes a lot of energy and time. On the basic level of just pure evil, people seamlessly group together to fight a common enemy. This leaves the evil people who need to fit in with the good people.

These people then need to understand two worlds, one is the lie that they live and the other is hiding their true intent. This also scales down to smaller evil deeds like corruption, self-promotion, or even white-lies.

Even just braving a smile but dislike the person underneath takes more energy than just ignoring the person. If we could tell the difference, we would prefer to be with the person who is more forgiving.

I believe that simply by having good intent is natural because it is fundamental to our ability to survive because we do not waste as much energy as evil people. This would also explain why many of the unsuspecting evil people are highly intelligent. I get tired just remembering who doesn't like to hang out or work with other people. Many times, I believe that I only seem intelligent because I do not waste a lot of time with rumors where I tried to keep up but I became physically drained. I really do feel dumber as I figure things out because it always seem others seem to pick up on social cues and little tidbits so much easier than I do.

So although I have had some evil thoughts, I am probably too stupid to be any good at it. Unfortunately, this does not cover where my good intentions may clash with someone else's good intention. For example, the US presidential election nominee selections.

Well, it kind of does but not as cleanly defined as the prior examples. Although I believe people are well-intentioned, this area points out how lazy we can be. If we believe someone else will do something or if we do not understand which option is correct, we do nothing. On the extreme end, we have the capacity to become silent witnesses where we do not call the police even though a major crime occurred in a somewhat public area believing that someone else would have called it in. On a lesser end, we do not report misbehavior especially in a work-place because we are afraid of our social status of being a tattle-tale.

So the majority of people agree on good-intentions when life and death is the ultimate result, but when it comes to evil activities that are not life and death then our good-intentions become fuzzy even when we know what is right and wrong. If we add in evil activities where people believe they won't be caught or punished, this becomes even more dicey (like speeding when driving).

Then what is good people? Those who have more good-intentions than evil ones? Those who only have good intentions? Ultimately, I think the general population are misguided well-intentioned people. Our conflict is primarily on short-term gains versus long-term gains. Basically, when is good-enough, enough?

Who are These Electric Suppliers?

Once again, a relative thought I could assist in this just because I studied electrical engineering. A relative received a call from an energy supplier and was not sure if that was her electric company (ie energy provider). She thought she heard a different name at the start of the call but then they kept saying her provider's name. She was confused on what the difference was between a supplier and a provider.

I was confused too as the terms does sound very similar so google I went (I never understand why people just don't do this before calling). So I find that the suppliers are basically resellers of energy. All the infrastructure and maintenance is still done by the provider. The provider being the typical company that provides your energy.

The savings that was given was about 20%, but the supplier's telemarketer was very pushy about getting voice authorization... because it is so obvious that people should just sign up. No information on contract or fees or anything. They also called me at a bad time (my relative forwarded the call... sadly my private number now on another calling list that will probably never be removed), so I was trying to get off for a meeting. They kept pushing that it will only take 2 minutes to authorize while I am trying to say that I need to do more research before doing so and this lasted another 15 minutes!!! I felt too invested to hang up at this point but I should have.

After finally hanging up, I did more research and I suppose it was a good deal but her electric bill was already pretty low so the savings did not seem worth the hassle of switching to a company that would use such unscrupulous tactics to get someone to sign up. There are many things the supplier claimed that basically everything will be the same but I could not find any reviews online so I didn't think it was worth the risk.

They may be a legit company. They are on the list of licensed supplier in the state. Even then, there are so many terrible practices that can used to just annoy you to no end with just billing alone much less if there are other problems. I cannot say if suppliers do these things but could easily be done as you do read about them in other industries. I also had one where the vendor never stopped billing/charging my credit card even after I called and even went onsite a couple times. Eventually, I just called the credit card company and blacklisted them, and fortunately my money back. But usually utility companies require direct payment from bank or debit cards where you won't have that extra level of protection. Even then, it is such a hassle to manage.

So for a company to have to call and pressure the person to switch (especially not willing to provide written form of the agreeement/contract), this deal is just not worth it to save a couple dollars.

Reference

http://www.houselogic.com/home-advice/saving-energy/should-I-switch-electric-suppliers/#.

Life: Detached Life, Attached Life, What Life Do I Want?

Do I want to rage in my life or observe from a detached point-of-view? Here I want to differentiate "I" from "us" because I want to be clearer that this is a choice that an individual cannot take both extremes. Most of us will fall in between the two, but we will likely lean more towards one than the other.

And as I ponder on this thought, my curiosity is more on what made me decide the path to take and what made you who you are. The more that I think on it, the harder it was to imagine that I made my choice without the world around me. It is like a void that I filled.

My life has taken me towards a path, while my talents have driven me towards a subset of those paths. Given all the choices I've made and the choices of the people around me has made, my one single path is the one that I lived. My future may have infinite paths, but not all paths are available to me.

I will never know what it was like to be homeless, parent-less, and the same time I will also not know what it is to be king or wealth beyond my imagination. I can guess, but I'll never know. It is just life to me because there is nothing I can do about what is. This does not make me sad or happy.

By the same thought at the more extremes, do criminals exist because of the situation they were put into? I am not perfect. Assuming that everyone is imperfect, there are bound to be "cracks" in society that almost seem like it necessitates the existence of "evil" within our world.

So to solve our worldly issues, we cannot "not" care about the world around us. To me, the solution is to strive to be self sufficient and be able to help at least one other person so that my idea can survive. If I can help at least two other people, then I have at least made the world a better place. Eventually those two people can help at least one other person.

I can choose to be a more pro-active person or an indirect person. I believe both paths can solve our problems. To reach the point to safely guide someone else, we need to reach a point where we are comfortable with our existence. Whether you find your sufficiency through a god, multiple gods, no gods, science, nature, personal faith, or even questionable existence, I believe we all seek a greater truth and we can all reach there faster with everyone. For a Buddhist monks see things that a pope does not see which neither can truly see what you nor I see. By sharing our vision, we can see a bigger picture... hopefully, we'll see that none of us are wrong. We just saw it differently.

Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb-OYmHVchQ

“Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.” -Ernest Becker