Does the world encourage or discourage good behavior?

[Esper]

In other words, considering the current state of affairs in the world, the different factors and influences that affect an individual, does it overall try to push us more toward being good people or bad people? For the sake of argument, we might want to assume that a good person is selfless, kind, nurturing, etc. and a bad person is cruel, greedy, violent, etc.

I'm just curious to know if you think the world is a good or bad place on the whole and if it affects what kind of people we turn out to be.

 

[gimmepie]

We live in a world that likes to think that it encourages us to be all those things and we grow up bombarded by messages that say "be a good person" and "bad people get what's coming to them!"

Eventually we grow up though, and we realise that being good, following all the rules - laws, policy, personal values etc - you don't necessarily come out on top. Actually, you're more likely to get beaten down and taken advantage of. Meanwhile, you'll watch terrible people succeed with seeming ease. It's painfully obvious that a lot, a lot of the people who seem to be set up for success are the ones willing to circumvent rules and hurt people for their own benefit.

Once you realise that, it's really hard to keep being good. We've got laws, PSAs, education and even positive morals in media but that doesn't amount to much when you can see plain as day that being good is a lot harder than doing wrong. So no, I don't think the world as it is does a lot to encourage good behaviour - even from people who want to do good.