Your opinion of most of the people in real life?

[Ravager69]

Funny thing, I just got into a discussion regarding a similar topic on another forum. Guess this is a common issue.

As for myself...I'm often pretty arrogant and feel myself superior to others despite not having enough qualities to back it up. I try to fight it and be humble, but succeed only to a degree. I think that people like to concentrate on other people's problems and flaws to escape having to face their own. That's the thing with me, if I have a moment of insight on my bad side, I usually go from depressed to angry, and let that anger on others. It's easier to hate someone than yourself and if he\she looks and behaves diffrently, it's even easier (that's why racism came about I think).

As for crowd mentality...often intelligent, educated and tolerant people turn into a bunch of assholes if you get them together for a longer time. That's just how it works, it will never change.

And Empty, I have to agree - if you trick people lke this, no matter what you think about them, then it seems you are worse then you think they are. Let people know what you think about them, just be gentle and never treat people who never wronged you like this. They don't deserve it. Looks like you are in over your head a bit.

 

[monsharen]

As for crowd mentality...often intelligent, educated and tolerant people turn into a bunch of assholes if you get them together for a longer time. That's just how it works, it will never change.

It is funny you say this on a forum where most worship a game with this very theme.

 

[DirkGently]

So, how does it feel to be fifteen?

 

[Empty09]

What do you think of the people around you? Do you have a high tolerance or do you hate everyone?
In my experience, I’ve encountered people in all shapes and colors.

So you just started high school and that makes you a expert on life experiences and peoples attitudes? sorry kid I think you have a lot to yet to learn and experience.

Yes, I just started high school and I could start speaking about my life if you still believe that I'm "an expert". No, I'm not an expert, I've endured a lot of things.
And yes, of course that I've got a lot yet to learn and experience.


Alright, I'll try to reply to everyone that's been posting. One by one.

While you do sound like an engaging young man Empty09, it also sounds like you have some social issues yourself. You think you're better than everyone else, yet "try" to sink to their level? Judging from your text it wouldn't surprise me if you eventually start hearing voices and go ape nuts with guns on people. Without having met you in real life this shit rings the psychopath bell for me. Don't bury stuff inside you, it will only come back to haunt you later on. With guns.

While social issues might seem an obvious minus in one's life, I suppose I'd be just a robot without having them. Even I find it weird in a slight way, if I read what I wrote again but seriously, sometimes ...any problem that I had in life comes back in my mind when there is something similar waiting to occur, keeps me focused and careful on leading a better life.

I've also noticed that everyone thinks I consider myself smart or something...and I'm going to answer to this until the end of this post (for now) and not only in your reply, candlejack.

If I read all I've posted so far, even I'll get at least a minimal thought that I consider myself superior. The only apology I can give is maybe because I can't express myself on the internet that good but I never bragged to anyone in real life
the only reason I sound that way is because I'm not what I'm actually looking like, because if I don't do one thing IRL, I can at least discuss about it on the internet, with people I don't know.
I've been pointing out the wrongs in some people I know and how they have no reasoning, some people I'm going to live with some hours per day, for a few years.
I'm not trying to sink to any level, there is my level only. It only decreases or increases. Maybe by sinking to that level you mean "don't be rude and point out wrongs of people in their face "

Now, now, I don't think Empty09 is psychotic or anything. After reading this thread so far, he just seems like a fake asshole. Sorry if that sounds harsh. I mean, I can't stand people, but I don't have a superiority complex, I don't think I'm better than others, and I don't try to humor people I deem as lesser than me (which I don't really deem others lesser than me). You're really pretentious, fake, and other words I don't feel like digging out. You sound like you have one of the worst personalities out there, no different from those who piss you off, perhaps even worse. Seriously, you have no room to judge others.

I don't know whether or not you really mean that, in the dead-serious mode of course, but fake asshole? I'm just trying to be nice with everyone, don't tell them what I think about them in their face as I mentioned already. Of course I have no room to judge the others, no one has. But in our minds everyone does, no matter if we decide or not to make a really big fuss about it, but we do.
I'm just posting some thoughts up. I suppose writing sincerely is one of my traits. I just try to show people how I think and I hope they'll give me honest, realist opinions without thinking that such a mean and evil guy like me (as I'm getting the thought I'm looked up to as) live in the same world with the pretty flowers and cute cats.

I like to consider myself more of an observer, even when I'm called names I don't start taking offence until boiling point. I just analyze and try to communicate in peace.

I've got nothing wrong with smart people. But I hate people who think there smart. And I don't like smart people with no commonsence.

I guess I'm a braggart that brags about not being a braggart.
Could be a possibility, but really, did I let that impression?
I'm not considering myself smart, or THE smart one among every and all. But, on a deeper insight, if it's the case I won't ..for example attend some competition and if I'm like...the 50th in 100 that qualified for the next round (just giving an example) I won't tell one of the 50 people below me suave things like "oh, I know you did your best, you should have deserved more bla bla"
No. No. More likely I'll say that everyone made it to the place they struggled to reach. No time for sorrow and sweet talking.

That's true: in some respects, that feeling of superiority is a defense mechanism against the insecurities we feel, especially during puberty. Interestingly, I've found that the more I try to honestly understand other people, the less superior and the more sympathetic I tend to feel (toward them and others). However, when I step back and try to look objectively at broader behavioral trends, or even at specific people and the ways they make decisions, it's hard not to notice significant differences and to feel a sense of futility. (I shudder thinking about election season and the low degree of critical thinking evident in both the campaign ads and the public responses.)

I don't see other people as enemies. I see them as ..members of a big family. But for some I feel sorry, sorry because, we are the same species, we breathe the same air but we should also keep in mind not to trust anyone too much, because eventually we'll get stabbed in the back, harder than the dose WE did ever reserve for stabbing them in the back in the first place.

And Empty, I have to agree - if you trick people lke this, no matter what you think about them, then it seems you are worse then you think they are. Let people know what you think about them, just be gentle and never treat people who never wronged you like this. They don't deserve it. Looks like you are in over your head a bit.

There's rarely a good outcome after you tell someone what he is.
Even if you succeed to tell him by being gentle you won't be exchanging cars or take the dinner with each others family in the end anyway.
And how do I treat people by the way, Ravager?
The biggest offence I've ever brought to someone is by being passive with them.

In conclusion, I'd rather keep a formal stance and dialogue with the people I don't ...prefer.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

Don't worry kid, you'll grow up too and your life will be miserable just like everyone else's. You'll find escape in hard drugs, alcohol and homoerotic encounters with dirty hobos. So enjoy your teenage elitism while you can.

 

[DirkGently]

Don't worry kid, you'll grow up too and your life will be miserable just like everyone else's. You'll find escape in hard drugs, alcohol and homoerotic encounters with dirty hobos. So enjoy your teenage elitism while you can.

This reminds me of an old bumper sticker/T shirt phrase:

"Teenagers! Move out and get a job while you still know EVERYTHING."

 

[Ravager69]

There's rarely a good outcome after you tell someone what he is.
Even if you succeed to tell him by being gentle you won't be exchanging cars or take the dinner with each others family in the end anyway.
And how do I treat people by the way, Ravager?
The biggest offence I've ever brought to someone is by being passive with them.

In conclusion, I'd rather keep a formal stance and dialogue with the people I don't ...prefer.

One - I never told you to *say* people what you think about them. I let people know how much I like them without using words - voice tone, look and body language. I am still being polite and patient, so this is what I meant by "gently". The person who I am talking to knows exactly how I feel about them and I do not feel bad about myself. Why? Because I am being honest toward others. They can trust me to be honest with them and I guess to many, that is more important than honeyed lies.

Secondly - you said you pretend to be other people's good buddy, that you laugh despite not wanting to, generally fake your affection for the other person. Tell me, what would you feel if your best friend who you thought you could entrust with any intimate thought said that he only hanged around with you 'cause he wanted to get close to, say, your sister\female friend\whatever. Also, he think that in reality, you are a pathetic looser with no hope for a good life. And he left you no illusion that he does not mean it. You know any crueler way to treat someone (in civilised boundaries)?

Always remember that you are as much of a fucked up person with barely any knowledge on life as others. It goes for everyone, including me.

 

[The Vault Dweller]

It's easier to hate someone than yourself and if he\she looks and behaves diffrently, it's even easier (that's why racism came about I think).

I would argue that racism typically doesn't exist in societies until there is some sort of reason why we "need" it. Looking historically, almost every instance of discrimination has been a response to a problem utterly unrelated to race - rather, race is used as a scapegoat because it is an easily identifiable and highly visual signifier of difference. People don't think about "black", "white", "Asian", "Indian" until economic, demographic or political circumstances demand that they categorise people that way. It's not that difference wasn't acknowledged, but rather that people weren't viewed as fundamentally inferior or superior on the sole basis of that difference.

This is absolutely true.

Also as long as you have the don't fall to the level of deriding others, because of any perceived strengths or weaknesses you are definitely better than they are simply for being righteous. Just don't let that be something you use as an opportunity to deride others.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller

 

[Crni Vuk]

Don't worry kid, you'll grow up too and your life will be miserable just like everyone else's. You'll find escape in hard drugs, alcohol and homoerotic encounters with dirty hobos. So enjoy your teenage elitism while you can.

so wrong ... and yet so true *le sigh*

The core attitudes at school will NEVER change, you will always have the nerds you will always have the popular kids. People will always follow trends and attitudes in school. The thing is school is just school and people do change after it.

I dont know, maybe its for everyone different ~ and I spend a lot of time in it with studing for some jobs and the usual collegue/high-school stuff (its not exactly the same here but just to get a picture).

It seems like it depends more on the people youre dealing with. But I never had the feeling right now that its like "those are the cool kidz - they are the nerds - those are the etc." during work for example. What I notice is that there are certain groups usualy. People you can talk and work better then with others. But as said its for me more on a idividual basis. I get along with pretty much almost anyone its only very rarely that I disslike someone or cant work with some people but I do usualy try to seperate work and private life very strictly. But it might have something to do with the jobs I do right now since I work in a factory for food additives sometimes also on assembly lines. Something many might consider as "low work" no clue it doesnt feel for me like that anyway but I have also done a lot of worse things and I am used with it. Maybe with other jobs its different and you have here situations similar to school. But in the factory I work now its pretty great no one is feeling supperior to the other and people threat each other pretty nicely even my shift supervisor which is working here already for more then 30 years is behaving more like the usual worker then like a boss.

 

[Brother None]

I love people.

 

[José Cruz]

The core attitudes at school will NEVER change, you will always have the nerds you will always have the popular kids. People will always follow trends and attitudes in school. The thing is school is just school and people do change after it.

I dont know, maybe its for everyone different ~ and I spend a lot of time in it with studing for some jobs and the usual collegue/high-school stuff (its not exactly the same here but just to get a picture).

It seems like it depends more on the people youre dealing with. But I never had the feeling right now that its like "those are the cool kidz - they are the nerds - those are the etc." during work for example. What I notice is that there are certain groups usualy. People you can talk and work better then with others. But as said its for me more on a idividual basis. I get along with pretty much almost anyone its only very rarely that I disslike someone or cant work with some people but I do usualy try to seperate work and private life very strictly. But it might have something to do with the jobs I do right now since I work in a factory for food additives sometimes also on assembly lines. Something many might consider as "low work" no clue it doesnt feel for me like that anyway but I have also done a lot of worse things and I am used with it. Maybe with other jobs its different and you have here situations similar to school. But in the factory I work now its pretty great no one is feeling supperior to the other and people threat each other pretty nicely even my shift supervisor which is working here already for more then 30 years is behaving more like the usual worker then like a boss.

Yes, in the adult world these highschool social patterns don't happen.

In fact, in my school years only up to the 9th grade that the nerd and cool kids social division existed. After that people started to mature into real human beigns and not "school creatures".

 

[CloudlessDruid]

meh, I don't think so. You were lucky then, in your high schook, because usually it's not that better. Nowadays nerds splits into geeks, nerds, emos, gothics, hipsters and all of those so called 'urban tribes' during high school. And the cool kids just keep being the cool kids. I don't think the high school is much of an improvement compared to elementary school.

 

[memetics]

@Jose Cruz: You must have gone to a high school with a much better-adjusted group of people than I did. :=) Anyway, unfortunately, I seem to know too many adults who don't mature much beyond their HS mentality. (But then again, maybe they're just reacting to me being too judgmental and standoffish, rather than showing me their true colors, eh?) Hm. ...

I don't see other people as enemies. I see them as ..members of a big family. [...] eventually we'll get stabbed in the back,

Not sure how the "enemies" idea related to the quote you were responding to, but I agree with the family idea: in a sense, we're all tied together and have to learn how to live with each other and interact effectively. (Some family members certainly seem dumber and less successful than others, though, eh? hehe)

However, it also bears considering that for most of the history of our species, we lived in fairly small tribal units (around 40 members, more or less), so our genes evolved in a context that let people focus on maintaining at most a few dozen relationships with people they'd known all their lives. When we're faced with dealing with tens or hundreds of strangers each week, we don't exactly have innate mechanisms to deal with that. We have to rely on learned behaviors instead, and they are often absent or let us down, which leads to conflict. (So perhaps eventually we will get "stabbed in the back," but most of the time we won't - unless we're contributing to the equation by always expecting the knife, eh?)

On top of that, as Deborah Tannen says, most communication is "cross-cultural": people with different conversational styles (varying degrees of directness and indirectness, for example) will misinterpret each other's meanings - much like what's happening in this thread as people misinterpret each others' levels of arrogance, or hostility, or their implied meanings ("metamessages"). It's especially tricky in text-based comm. when you don't have the non-verbal signals of face-to-face comm. to aid your interpretations.

That is the main reason why it's so important to make an extra effort to be more tolerant of others and give people the benefit of the doubt, even when they seem rude or stupid. The more patience we have and willingness to get to know others, the more we can see past our initial tendencies toward oversimplified categorization of others.

But it's hard to keep focused on that (just as it's hard to think critically, as I mentioned earlier), and much easier to slip back into thinking of most people as generally stupid. I find myself doing that all the time, actually - thanks to lazy habits of thought (or genetically-programmed tendencies, perhaps) - especially when I'm being impatient or inconvenienced. (Or when I read that the sequel to my favorite game has been canceled! ;=)

-m

 

[Verevoof]

I have split your response in two here, is the last bit directed to me or Empty09? I am guessing it is towards me...

Nope, it was all directed to Empty09.

Seriously though, this is a forum and he did ask for our opinion. Venting and judging is a part of its nature. That go for all of us.

Just giving my opinion and venting.
Of course everyone judges.

 

[PastaMasta]

I try to be nice to everyone but just come off like a dick sometimes, make of that what you will. There's alot of douchebags I know who i'm surrounded by in everyday situations with massive egos. I like my friends though most of the time.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Yes, in the adult world these highschool social patterns don't happen.

I would not be surprised if it happens somewhere even with adults. Its just that I never experienced it so far. But I personaly think the life of a adult person is just to different to a usual student. I mean if youre working you take care about your life and not either your parents or the school it is easier to seperate job and privacy. With school that often enough is not possible. You will many times meet the same jerks outside of home you also see in school, many of your friends either go in the same school or even same class room (at least for some time) students usualy lack the experience a usual worker has that spend a few years doing his job. With a job people usualy travel a biger distance and here at least its not rare that you never even meet anyone outside of your work place that you know in the past my best friend was in the same class rom as I and we shared a lot of time together in school and outside of it now we are still awesome friends but we dont share the same work nor the same place anymore as there is alos a huge distance between us so we only meet each other in time outside of work so the one doesnt know the workmates of the other that was different in school once we still shared the same classrom it gives you a distance to the people around you different to teenagers. I mean it is also a difference if you get payed for what you do or if you see the school just as a "mandatory" ~ and how many of us havnt seen it like that ? Not that a job is not a mandatory but you can at least get the feeling that you achieved something once you get your paycheck at least and know that your rent is payed and got some food in your fridge which you worked for. School is only something we usualy realise as something valuable when its over and we have to face reality ... and that a bad graduation isnt really helpfull outside.

 

[Hamenaglar]

I always chuckle when people go "Yeah, it's all the other people who are idiots. Not me though. I'm a rational guy and I don't follow the mob menatlity."

It's a lazy mode of thinking and a lazy way to feel superior.

I often say that 99% percent of humans are idiots, but then again I never excluded my self. That would be too arrogant even for me.

I do however find most people boring. Actually it's only a question how quickly you are going to become boring to me. Sometimes it's a matter of hours, sometimes a matter of days, rarely weeks and the only person that was interesting to me for months was THAT girl. Luckily I'm antisocial and don't need to hang out with other people. I'm just fine by my self.

 

[Mr Fish]

I love people, they're just awesome, taste great when cooked with thai recipes.

Seriously though, I don't "hate" most people, some I do hate, but I dislike people that are basically "sheeps".
That just follow along with everything.
Those who can listen to some guy spewing garbage for an hour and suddenly change their life devoting themselves to his cause.

But most people I've met are alright.
Some of them are just boring or uninteresting but I don't hate them or think anything less of them cause of that.
They're just not the kind of people I hang around with.

 

[Makagulfazel]

90% and 99%?
Holy fuck, somebody needs a hug. Good luck finding one from the 1-10% of people who don't upset you. Picky bastards.

 

[thegaresexperience]

I used to think lesser of religious people, people with different tastes than me, and people that talked lot about mundane things. I was bitter and antisocial, then i grew up and those people became my best friends. They have families and carry more responsability than i ever have. Got real jobs and still keep in contact with me, people have more than meets the eye. That goes for good and bad tho.

I think feeling superior is part of normal cycle of growing up, most of my friends have told me these kind of thoughts at some point and i bet if you had seen them in high school you would have seen them as lesser beings too. I think people value themselves over others most of the time and it is natural, better though just to be honest to yourself and not make claims of intellectual superiority in your mind. People arent really that stupid they can see trough that kind of stuff eventually.

And yeah if it really went that way that your class started to throw insults at girl in middle of class it is pretty damn irritating.

I agree with most of this. I used to think I was better than alot of people (especialy those with faith/religion, now those are some of my closest friends, hell religion may be a point of contension but it does have a good message you can take into a secular POV), but I realized that its good to be friends/or be friendly to people who have differences of opinions, because hanging with a bunch of people who all like the same things is essentially following a "crowd". Example: I like metal music (among other genres, let me assure you), technical death metal is currently the "flame of the week" for me and most of my friends hate it, but I dont begrudge them for it or make fun of their tastes (well, seriously that is... unless it's Coldplay or Nickleback).

But to get back to the task at hand: No I don't hate "people" as a whole. There are people I do not like, and not one specific group/clique/gang/what have you, it's individuals. I go by the rule "if youre an asshole to me or my friends, I hate you". I try to be civil to most people, even those I hate/dislike.