• MightyCuriosity@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    I like this as a thought experiment: Lemmy, at what point does someone stop being nice? And is there a difference between acting or being nice?

    • Trex202@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Raymond is probably “nice” to the fellow white dude, polite and not physically aggressive.

      Raymond is not nice to society.

      • Mac@mander.xyz
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        2 months ago

        Could even be nice to the marginalized they know and deem “one of the good ones” but still vote violence against them and be racist pieces of shit.

        I know people in this exact scenario, in fact.

      • ILoveUnions@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I know people like this. They’re “nic”. But what that means is they put everyone they know into “one of the good ones” box. So they’re polite to all people they know, basically… It’s interesting and horrifying to see tbh

        • angrystego@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I kniw that probably you didn’t mean it that way, but it sounds as though you’re excusing Raymond.

        • OrteilGenou@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Nothing new here, who doesn’t know someone who is very pleasant on the surface and a complete sociopath underneath?

    • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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      2 months ago

      It’s like when people romanticise the old London gangsters and say they were polite and always looked after their mother. That still doesn’t make up for a lifetime of criminal intimidation, physical assault and murder.

      If someone’s polite but just waiting for a local chapter of blackshirts to form they’re not nice people.

    • Liberteez@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Imo nice and kind are separate qualities, mutually exclusive. Raymond is unkind towards women, but he may have a nice demeanor. Lots of evil people can be nice around others in chit chat, but cruel in their actions and beliefs.

        • Liberteez@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          Never heard the term gentleman thief, that’s fun. I had Southern Hospitality in mind. A notorious stereotype is that southerners are nice but mean, and northerners are kind but rude.

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This is an interesting question. Given a sufficiently functional environment “Raymond” may be functionally harmless as its impossible to for him to have anything crazy he wants. In a functional enough one he wont even admit the crazy shit he believes because it would see him excluded and possibly fired.

      Do we then consider him eccentric instead of a POS? Is a sex murder a “nice” if he’s behind bars and we only talk to him about normal stuff and forget that he would gladly rape and murder you without the bars?

      At some point we need to understand that someone who would take away your rights and potentially kill you if you didn’t roll over and accept his dominion isn’t “nice” just because he exists in an environment where he isn’t in a position to work his will.

      • MightyCuriosity@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Good point. There’s plenty of examples (fictional or not) where ‘nice’ people were driven to ‘not nice’ things and vice versa. The fact we need laws indicate that maybe mostly people are maybe not nice? Since if we’d be considerate we wouldn’t need those laws (in general)? It seems most people seem to think ‘being nice’ is doing things the majority of people deem as a good thing to do.

    • boolean_sledgehammer@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      “Niceness” is largely performative. It’s based on words and little else. Being “nice” is based on how someone views themself.

      Kindness, on the other hand, is rooted in an intrinsic belief that is shown through action. It extends beyond the individual and considers how their actions relate to society as a whole.

      You can paint a layer of “nice” over an absolute garbage core personality. It doesn’t really mean anything. These days, “nice” can be used to describe a baseline level of standard civility that allows you to function in society. It says nothing about what kind of person you are.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      You can believe really stupid shit, but still be a nice person, so that question probably has a grey zone that would be hard to qualify, withe several “dealbreakers” in there. Like, you can’t be a nice person if you want to own slaves.