Saturday, June 20, 2009

Type-casting

There are no good or bad people, per se: we simple ascribe these generalizations to others based on
  1. our experiences in interactions with us
  2. our observations of their interactions with others
  3. reports of their interactions with others
A person might behave well or badly towards you and yet behave in quite the opposite manner in relationships with others. Does this make them good or bad? We are surprised when hardened criminals do selfless things, or when philanthropists turn out to have been terrible parents. The problem is with our inability to deal with complexity, a matrix of relations rather than a vector of friends and enemies.

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