nerdology.org

The Basic Good of People

“People are basically good.” Someone said that. eBay repeated it. I believe it, but sometimes I feel so emotionally pummeled that I wonder if the world hasn’t twisted many people’s “good” beyond comprehension.

Despite differing morals (or the complete lack thereof) and differing viewpoints, I do believe people are basically good. When you spend much of your time working and learning via the internet, though, you begin to wonder if that’s really true. For some reason, a large portion of public communication tools– blogs, comment sections of news sites, forums, etcetera– seem dominated by people who simply hate. I saw it while helping with OSNews– though admittedly OSNews has a much higher class of a community that is tolerant and usually somewhat respectful even while disagreeing– I see it in the comments on videos on YouTube, I’ve seen it on EggXpert, I’ve seen it on the comments of people’s personal blogs, I see it in the comments of KSL.com, Deseret News, and the Salt Lake Tribune websites, and I see it prevalent elsewhere. In fact, I now tend to avoid those areas simply due to the fact that people there aren’t civil and that they thrive off of hateful argument and putting down others.

Still, there’s always someone who restores your faith in humanity. The following was recently commented today on my YouTube video that I submitted to be in Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir. It really wasn’t all that great– especially only by itself without other parts– but it warms one’s heart to see pure gratefulness and kindness on the internet once again!

This is quite amazing. Good job though Im only a wind ensemble player. I really appreciate how you appreciate the music. Thank you for keeping music alive. ^_^ Keep it up haha.

–MergGates1