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Comment by quinttttle | Hacker News Reader

for every gifted, motivated, positive, constructive person in the world, there are probably 100,000 that want to tear them down and eat the carcass.

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10,000 people is as many people as some entire towns, I don't think society would hold together very long if it were true.

100,000 supposes that there are... hmm... about eighty thousand non-evil people in the world, and (odds are) exactly none of them are Marshallese and about 2 are Samoan, to give a sense of how silly this is.

It doesn't . But usually that third of the population is busy going for each others throat and ignoring the "fools" while then taking the coins that mysteriously spawn near those as psychopath price mobey.

Oh, so for every 2 good people there's actually 1 bad person. That's a very different ratio.

I think you are assuming there are a unique 10,000 people for each gifted individual. I think it safe to say there is overlap and that those 10,000 people are each going after several gifted people.

You also appear to be assuming there are no mid range people who everyone ignores, that is going to be the majority of the population.

But those people don’t have to be evil all the time.

Society holds well if someone steals a candy from the shop.

Those people can become shitty and despicable for that one person they envy and can be great for their friends and family all the other time.

I believe the opposite. The issue is that destroying requires much less effort than creating.

You can have both at the same time: Say, 15 who want to help them, and 5 who would want to hurt them. And then you can be right both of you. Although the angry ones would be harder to see (sychopants)

Even better imagine people don’t have to be mean/awful all the time. They can be shitty for a coworker and then be great for friends and family or be great for people at other job.

There are really evil people that might be shit all the time but society is rather good at spotting them.

Also, those who want to destroy are easier to herd than those who want to create, or even those who just want to maintain the status quo.

Only in low-trust societies. Modern, higher-trust society can only function because this isn't true.

There is probably a high percentage of tearing down, I doubt its so extreme.

I think maybe 1 in 100k is actually anything special, but odds are you aren't special, you just noticed that 20% of the population is as gifted/motivated/constructive as you are (statistically speaking, assuming a bell curve).

And of those, yes, some small percentage will still feel "special" and affronted that other people have the same ideas/goals/desires as them.

It's a rat race and it's not your fault.

The world does not work like that. Sure, for every person, there may be 100_000 that do not share their ideals. But even 10/100_000 would seem ridiculously high as a percentage of people who actively try to destroy and cannibalize the work of others to showcase their own. Another commenter said it here - it's easier to destroy than create. I guess by my vibe-based estimates, it's at least 1_000 times easier to destroy than create, in aggregate.

No there’s not. This is what narcissistic assholes tell themselves when someone calls them out for being a narcissistic asshole.

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