Comment by exar0815 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by exar0815 | Hacker News Reader

I have witnessed something quite similar. During the flash-floods in 2021 in Germany, locals in the Ahr region absolutely rose to the occasion. Farmers were evacuating people in head-high water with their tractors during the night, local restaurants were already providing hot food and water the next morning wherever they could reach, pharmacies were loading whatever they had available on ATVs to somehow get much-needed medicine down precarious mudpaths. Local construction companies were already clearing rubble and building emergency bridges out of it. One Excavator was just basically standing in the middle of the river and ferrying people and rescue partys across. The local racetrack basically just organized everything while politicians were still playing the blame game. When our local firebrigade was officially pulled back from active duty because we lost one of ours during rescue operations in the first day, basically everyone just went down again and just tried to do whatever was possible. Absolutely stunning what people will do when they are face to face with disaster. I freely admit that I was crying like a little girl when I first saw the endless columns of Bundeswehr, THW, Fire Brigades, Farmers, basically everyone who could just streaming to help people they never met but were neighbors and friends for me.

Sorry for the rambling, but I am still not emotionally disconnected enough from it to concisely talk about it.

Yes. I think people are good overall.

I think the biggest reason people in small towns may be a bit quicker to help is that people in cities are a little conditioned by the bystander effect to assume that people around them, or the authorities, are better equipped to help.

But any random individual asked for help in a city is likely to go well beyond their duty and be quite helpful.

> or the authorities, are better equipped to help.

It's not just "equipped to help". It's also that random untrained people can do more harm than good. Hell, even random trained people can do more harm that good when there are too many people around.

I'm not a medical professional, but I have some first aid training and have been the most-trained first responder in not-even-crowded areas on a few occasions. Even with only 10 people around, managing the crowd while providing care becomes difficult.

The article even mentions:

> “It was a wonderful problem to have,” said school district superintendent, Eric Hoyt, “but we probably had too many volunteers show up.”

In a town of 171 people. Just 171 people, and crowd management became a problem.

Now drop into Manhattan, with approximately 1.629 million more people. If "everyone" showed up to an incident, you'd have at least an order of magnitude more deaths from the stampede to help than from the original event.

People in dense cities move away from the scene of an accident in order to get out of the way, which in most cases is genuinely the best thing they can do to help.

Yah-- I'm not even quite talking about that, though. Whether someone else is better qualified to help in a given circumstance or not, we're conditioned to not get involved because someone else will. Hence, the bystander effect, which stops people from being helpful even when they could.

I have first aid training, too, and my impulse is not to rush to help but to look around at other people and see if they're going to do something.

> I think people are good overall.

Until a certain amount of sacrifices have to be made. Then things start getting tribal. The sacrifices do not even have to be material, simply sacrificing or losing socioeconomic status relative to others is sufficient.

I have found otherwise good people are capable of intentionally doing awful things to another human, even if you have known someone almost your entire life, a switch flips and it is like a full psychopath is unlocked. Many only need the moral cover, certain they are right, to say and do awful things to another.

This was always true but it seems to me that social media, in all its forms, not only takes your privacy, it also takes your empathy. At the root of many mental health disorders exists narcissism and for the past few decades an increasing number of people have been added to the empathy erasing internet hate machine.

Just look around, the proof is everywhere.

The proof of kindness is everywhere, too. Just look around.

In most cases people see what they prefer to see. Their response to such impossible questions tells you more about them - how they see the world, their sense of life - than it does humanity at large.

I agree, this is a hard subject, whether people are good or not. I've always believed we're all capable of doing good under certain conditions, but let most get out of their comfort zone and they'll turn on you like a mad dog. (sorry) Proof? just look at our political scene the last 5 plus years. I won't debate any thing ideologically anymore with co-workers, they simply default to anger when you press them to explain how they feel and why about any difficult ideas.

> >Yes. I think people are good overall.

> Until a certain amount of sacrifices have to be made.

I remember some political philosophy online course from some reasonably reputable American college that was quite nicely set up - it had a lecturer and two token students (a man and a woman). At some point the lecturer asked the students (IIRC the topic was anarchism) if they thought that people were fundamentally basically good - the man was like "yeah I think people are basically good", the woman said something along the lines of "Well, I grew up in Yugoslavia, so not really..."

Retake political science please.

The advent of the agricultural revolution, the telegraph, and the teletype each resulted in massive increases in "tribal size". To the point that after the teletype, it was a bipolar cold war.

So I don't think you have any qualifications to say a single word in this matter.

I have no idea what your comment is trying to convey, but to help clarify my comment, this might help:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...

I posit that at the root of all societal friction is the widening income/wealth gap within the US, along with shifting socioeconomic statuses with some losing ground and some gaining ground.

Note that people are in many tribes of many sizes simultaneously, and constantly shifting priorities and allegiances as it suits them, and trying to figure out others’ priorities and allegiances.

> I posit that at the root of all societal friction is the widening income/wealth gap within the US,

Why would you think this when there is little meaningful difference income-wise between Democrats and Republicans?

A significant chunk of the US votes on single issue matters that have nothing to do with economic status (abortion, gun rights).

I don't agree that the root is the income/wealth gap, but it certainly is playing a big role in the divide.

> little meaningful difference income-wise between Democrats and Republicans?

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu... is striking-- and when you look into the sub-demographics of the lowest and highest band it gets more interesting still-- e.g. that 27% in the lowest income band is shockingly rural.

>certainly is playing a big role in the divide.

The only divide is in whether it’s something that is even a problem that needs to be addressed. Income inequality doesn’t divide people itself, just the focus on it does.

> Income inequality doesn’t divide people itself

I don't agree. We're increasingly divided along lines that are very well correlated with demographic factors. Like, age, sure, but also income, religion, race, etc.

And the link makes it pretty clear income is a pretty strong predictor of political leanings. (And when you combine income + rural/urban split, it's a very strong one).

In other nations (e.g. Mexico, Peru, Ghana, Thailand, etc.) health care is provided to all. In USA lots of people can't afford any sort of health care. The family left behind by someone who dies at 48 because he couldn't afford e.g. blood pressure medication doesn't need any sort of "focus" to see the divide.

Health care is just the starkest illustration of this. One sees the same phenomenon with any other necessity: housing, food, transportation, etc.

What is shocking about it? Rural is by nature less efficient than high-density urban. Less productive. Everything costs more and pays less because rural living isn’t as “good” (in the ways that relate to income/velocity of money) as high density living.

You trade off dollar wealth green wealth: more trees, bigger land, less crowding, cleaner air, quieter environment, private living. The costs are in Longer drives, higher prices, less selection, lower pay, greater energy use, potentially far fewer cultural/educational/social opportunities.

I don't understand how what you said here relates to what I said. I didn't say that lower income people are more rural; I said that if you look at the left leaning subset of the lowest income people, they are very urban, and the right leaning subset of the lowest income people, they are very rural.

> A significant chunk of the US votes on single issue matters that have nothing to do with economic status (abortion, gun rights).

I wonder if the design of our so-called democracy has something to do with it. It's funny how this major foundation of our society escapes scrutiny, and it is mostly only the players within it who get any attention.

I don't see how his comment justifies yours-- either your reading of it (I don't see any claims about "tribal size" in his comment, and I'm sure we're all aware that there's a whole range of affiliations we have from large-- 'Murica-- to small-- HN fans) or the vitriol.

Be kind, please.

Your comment has broken the site guidelines badly. We ban accounts that do that, so could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here? We definitely don't want swipes or flamebait in HN comments.

speak for yourself

Tribes are actually very benevolent and certainly helpful to many strangers that in their eyes seek help. There have been numerous incidents all around the world where poor tribals have come and nurture a sick stranger back to life. It is basic human nature.

I am using a more generalized definition of tribe, to mean any group you belong or you categorize others to belong to. For example, my first priority tribe is my kids. Second priority tribe is probably kids and spouse. Then kids, spouse and myself. Then my siblings, and parents, and then maybe friends/extended family/members of my parents’ immigrant diaspora/my college class/neighbors/political allies/business partners/countrymen/etc.

It is a poor choice of words then if you have to disregard the actual tribes in the world.

> But any random individual asked for help in a city is likely to go well beyond their duty and be quite helpful.

Fortunately yes, though I think I'd still give the edge to small towns for this. In cities, people are a lot more wary of being scammed, since it happens more often in areas with more people.

Having gone small town to “the city,” my interactions with other humans are by and large a net negative to the point that it’s almost better for one’s sanity to not involve outside of whatever communities you have therein.

Having spent a decade now here, it feels a bit like when you’re getting a cavity ground out at the dentist and they finally hit the nerve. Spending time away, “back home” or in some other tight-knit society only seems to fill it in for it to be ground back down.

For the folks that can and do thrive in “the city,” I find it fascinating on how we must differ in mind and spirit.

I am with you here! There are lots of things I enjoy about living in the city, but ultimately I would also rate it as a net negative for my quality of life.

After almost 10 years of it, my family is finally taking the plunge and we are getting out. (Hooray for remote work and StarLink!)

There is no bystander effect. It was a theory invented and spread by the NYPD to take the spotlight off the fact that they didn't respond to calls reporting a murder in public.

> Philpot et al. (2019) examined over 200 sets of real-life surveillance video recordings [across 3 countries]...they found that intervention was the norm, and in over 90% of conflicts one or more bystanders intervened to provide help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Citing wikipedia, and cherrypicking one of the few pieces of research that partially argues against the effect in the massive article, is dubious.

The study you cited, indeed, doesn't deny the bystander effect that each person becomes less likely to help as more people are present. It just argues that in the most dangerous situations, the odds of someone intervening goes up slightly as the number of people increase. See https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/134891/1/Would_I_be_He...

I can tell you, my probability of intervening is lower the more people that are around. The total probability of someone intervening may go up or down based on a lot of circumstances. This is consistent with many individual research findings and meta-analyses, e.g. https://asset-pdf.scinapse.io/prod/2107050526/2107050526.pdf

As other people point out, it is rational and even helpful to be less inclined to intervene when more people are around and are likely to be able to help.

I cited wikipedia as that's where I learned that the "bystander effect" was a PR campaign invented by the NYPD in 1964, an interesting fact I thought to share. It states this in the first paragraph, then cites the study I chose to quote in both the next paragraph, as well as again later in the entry. I didn't cherry pick it, it's the main thrust of the page, and the largest study of its kind. In 219 observed disputes across 3 countries, the only times no bystander intervened were when couples were arguing amongst themselves, or when a thief was the one being beaten up.

It's hardly the main thrust of the page.

I linked the study above. Note that the individual probability of intervention falls as the number of people goes up (and the study you cited mentions this).

In some situations, it looks like the total probability of any intervention goes up as the number of people increases. In other situations, it looks like it goes down. The paper cited to produce that couple of sentences on Wikipedia makes the distinction quite clear and does not dispute the individual probability of intervention falls: https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/134891/1/Would_I_be_He...

Note that it quite clearly says that it does not refute the bystander effect: ". It is important that by examining intervention on the situational rather than the individual level, our research does not evaluate whether bystanders are less likely to provide help when in the presence of other bystanders compared with when they are alone (i.e., the bystander effect). "

I agree and don't dispute the Kitty Genovese thing was bullshit, but the bystander effect-- a reduced probability for individuals to respond when more people are around-- is one of the most replicated findings in behavioral psychology.

As to the probability of someone intervening-- it looks like the odds are best when a small number of people are around vs. property crime, and best when a large number of people are around vs. dangerous/emergency situations. Also, the efficacy of the latter intervention, assessed by victims, seems to fall as the number of surrounding people increase.

This is all well discussed in the wikipedia article and in the text of the particular study you're relying upon.

How do you know people in smaller towns are quicker to help?

I don't know it, I say "may be" quicker to help.

It does seem likely, given what we know about bystander effect. In cities, we're conditioned to expect someone else will take care of whatever's wrong, and this is less true in rural environs.

Thank you for bringing this up, it was the parallel story that first popped into my mind as well, as this was a national tragedy of rare proportions.

To me the amount of people streaming from everywhere in the entire country (!) to help fix up a region that has been struck with disaster moved me to tears more than once now.

And the happier I am about this circumstance, the angrier I get at politicians and some media.

Indeed. Any cursory observation of human behaviour will disprove the Thatcherian maxim that people only ever do anything for their own selfish interest.

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