Most nice people are merely signaling their niceness. They aren’t good people in reality, they are just great at signaling. We are so good at it that we don’t realize we do it until it’s brought to our attention.
Here is a test from the trolley problem to see where you lie. Imagine there was a train heading toward five people. On the other train track, there is one person. You are near a lever that diverts the train towards the one person and not the five… would you do it?
Now imagine another scenario. Imagine you are standing on a bridge next to a giant man. There is still a train heading toward five people below the bridge. You observe the man leaning over and can push him over the edge onto the train, stopping it from killing the five. Would you do it?
Last scenario. Now you are a doctor and have five patients with five different organ failures. A patient comes in for a checkup and during diagnosis, you realize that his five organs are compatible with the five patients’ failed organs. You could conduct an organ transplant, effectively killing the one but saving the five. Would you do it?
What if now the one person is your parent, brother, or best friend?
The nice people would stop at the second scenario. “It feels wrong” is something they would say. This means they haven’t thought deeply about what is good.
Nice people aren’t good people, they are people who are brought up in environments where nice behavior is rewarded.
They conform to social incentives. Murder is contrarian to social incentives hence it feels wrong to us.
Ask ourselves: Do we want to do good or have we merely conformed to what constitutes good behavior in social groups?
People who hold out signs saying to stop climate change are the aggressively nice types. They don’t put the engineering work to make it happen. Everyone hypes them up for being great people but in reality if they truly cared they would become an engineer. The problem is no one hypes you up as an engineer.
Characteristics of people who often fall into the nice person category:
High inclination to conform.
Strong need for social belonging.
Be a Good Person.
Being good means doing whatever is best for humanity.
It means sacrificing the one for the five. Including if it was you or your best friend that has to be sacrificed. It is the path that bears the most meaning.
Being good means sacrificing your humanity to benefit humanity.
Being good may mean walking the path alone. Bringing up contrarian ideas. Becoming disliked by social groups. All for humanity. Then despite all that, getting no recognition for all you’ve sacrificed. Then realize that and continue to push forward anyways.
Are we willing to throw away our humanity to benefit humanity? To put ourselves through a path worse than death? To sacrifice everything and risk not meaning anything? That is the ultimate sacrifice.
Research scientists and impact-driven founders are the people I look up to the most. They are willing to risk everything to progress humanity. People who know the risks, look at hell, know no one will support them, and still decide to move forward anyway. They are true heroes.
My benchmark for this is Elon Musk. He sacrificed everything. Work 100-hour work weeks, tough personality, abysmal family life. For ten years without recognition. All for humanity.
Earlier I said nice people aren’t good people, they are just people who are brought up in environments where nice behavior is rewarded. Ironically now that you know this, you now have the choice.
Do you want to be nice, or do you want to be good?