Comment by godelski
3 hours ago
This only results in a race to the bottom. A self fulfilling prophecy. The unfortunate truth is that if you want the world to be better you need to be better to it than it is to you. It's the only way that can even work.
You can just do nothing and things will get better when others do more than they get, but by you doing nothing you've just shifted your burden to others. The burden of each individual is small. Almost insignificant even. It's not hard to be kinder to others than they are to you. But the burden accumulates and compounds. You don't have to pick up the slack, but you do need to do your part. The future is made by all of us
> you need to be better to it than it is to you
If the person you are responding to hasn't screwed society over, then it sounds like they have easily cleared that bar, even by doing nothing.
The bar to clear isn't the lowest one set. That mentality is exactly what a race to the bottom is
Beautifully said.
I'd add a quote from the beginning of a famous sci-fi*:
You have to create Good out of Evil, because there is nothing else to create it from.
Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, famous Russian anti-system science-fiction brother duo. Their other notable book is Snail on a Slope.