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?
this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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I'm going to preface this statement by saying you don't need to be a believer or religious to benefit from religious things, or musings of religious people. Your questions relate to philosophy, morality, virtue. These are things religions have pondered for centuries. Millenia. Perhaps we should at least consider what they have to say. I'm also going to preface this with...I think I misinterpreted your first question. But I like what I whipped up & I think you will, too, so I'm keeping it. 🙂
Pope Saint John Paul II once said, “freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” Now I really like this definition because it implies that real, lasting, quality freedom of the individual still comes with some responsibilities & even obligations. In the same way "being nice" is multi-faceted, it's got layers to it, it's using your freedom, abilities, powers, & assets to do good things for others. To build others up.
Now on to what I think your questions are, but I'm going to answer in reverse because I think it flows better in convo: there are absolutely huge differences between acting nice & actually being nice. A big one is motivation. Are you nice to help others? Or are you being nice in a bid to gain favor, look good, or get something for yourself? Are you altruistic & trying to help others? Or are you just in it for yourself? In Rick & Morty, I liked the wedding toast where Rick says being nice is something stupid people do to hedge their bets. Some people are nice just to help themselves.
We all have an opportunity to become better, or "be good", and it doesn't have to be anything earth-shattering. It's the cumulative effect of making good choices, the right choices, every single day when we're presented with the opportunity. Will Durant, when summarizing Aristotle's philosophy, remarked, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
It's hard to define "a point where someone stops being nice"; I don't view humans as one-dimensional. It's got to exist somewhere. I go back to a person's focus & intention, some people are "not nice" on purpose & then I'm sure there are lots of people with glaring character flaws, who are themselves unaware and/or they don't personally view those characteristics as flaws. "Being nice", itself, is open to interpretation. Personally, I would define being nice (to others) as seeking out & prioritizing their needs, especially without obligation or compulsion. Maybe a person stops being nice when the bad is significant, or outweighs the good. Honestly this probably plays like the guy presented in comic, but I think different people can have different relationships with the same person. There's a difference between a man & his boss, a man & his guy friends, a man & his wife, a man & his children, a man & idk people he doesn't like. It's the same guy. I think how a man treats somebody he owes nothing to says a lot about "niceness" & character.
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.
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.
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.
Caleb!
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.
This is the entire concept of the gentlemen thief. Being polite, nice and honest in way stops someone from being an awful, terrible person who would gladly steal everything you own and leave you for dead.
People seem to struggle massively with the idea that others can be complex and multifaceted. Everyone whos "nice" must be good or everyone whos "mean" must be evil. Relly is just fundamentally flawed.
Everytime i see a comment saying they are confused over this it makes me feel like people just fundamentally do not understand the concepts of nuance or really other humans in general.
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.
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.
And who decides what the "dealbreakers" are? The majority of society? God? Some king? Santa Claus?
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That men should be given a wife by the state
Ok so while I joke about this subtext in the whole thing - if they actually want that, how the fuck do they expect that to work?
Historically the closest thing to "being given a wife" was a dowry, which in my mind is a stupid term made up for a family selling their daughter.
I imagine something akin to a draft or arranged marriages. You're not married, you're not married, congrats you're now married.
And that just freaking blows my mind. I'll admit I'm a tall blue eyed WASP male, with some success in my career, so based on their definition of outward appearances dictating good genes, I'd fall into that category of eligible bachelor that Nazi Germany had.
But I fail to see how the wife I would get assigned would be guaranteed to be desirable. For all I know, the state would select a petite 22 year old, blonde hair blue eyed white girl but from bumbfuck middle of nowhere Kentucky who is dumber than rocks and I always have to do everything for her that isn't cooking or baby making. That's a fuckload of stupid, Id have nothing in common with her, we'd probably both be lonely as fuck since we're 12 years apart.
To me, it sounds like their eugenics movement has nothing to do with a master race, and more so with a bunch of men that lack self-awareness and desire an animated sex doll.
I'm sad to report, she probably won't even be good at cooking.
As a fellow super white human, the amount of brown people siding with the white supremacists, and the amount of women who do the same thing blows my ever loving mind. None of us are safe with those fuckers. They truly don’t understand the danger of what they’re doing
No. They really don't.
I suspect you have had the similar experience where régime supporters automatically assume you are safe to voice their real opinion around?
They don't care how evil, gross, or horrible it is. These men talk about women as lesser beings. These men insist on the existence of a natural hierarchy. I'm sure a fair number of minority immigrants would hear their curated rhetoric and say "well yeah" because they had similar ideas from their previous culture. The thing they never realize is that the hierarchy is white men, then white women, then various minority rankings of men (who are seen as a threat) then minority women at the bottom.
And that's just the surface, because I can't hold back the statement of "fuck right off" and keep listening how deep their opinions go. Hence why the idea of drafted wives took me by surprise.
A lot of these minorities also always think that they're different because they're "one of the good ones" and will reap the same benefits.
Whenever anyone says someone is nice, I internally translate it as them saying, someone is polite. Still a douche but a polite douche.
I also don't think that men should be given a wife by the state though...
Robot wife though? I might consider.
Robot life partner for everyone? Absolutely.
What you guys don't have phones? Tsk
Well, two wives just seems excessive
We could really use someone who's competent around the household. Would also take a husband and anything in between.
Ok, how about we do it like I used to play the sims in 2000.
Every house has 5 workers, and 3 stay at home people. One of the stay at home people is a cook mostly. Won't burn the house down. And can then practice other skills. While people are at work.
The second stay at home person is similar, but instead of cooking, this person is a handyman.
The third stay at home person is actually a rotating spot. Why? Because this person just stays home all day every day and increases their skills. All the skills. Then when thats done, they go back into the work force, and we pull another person OUT of the workforce to enter that 3rd slot.
Eventually all 6 of the non-permanent stay at homers will have a full set of skills.
And the two stay at home people will cook, and maintain the house, while socializing. This ensures the house has family friends. Because you know your boss won't give you a raise until you have 4 family friends.
And the 6 workers will all have high paying jobs. Which means they can afford a maid, and a gardener.
Has the handyman slot been filled yet? This sounds like a great setup.
It's like you combined Big Brother and Friends, but in video game form
I'm a software engineer, I think I can be one of the 5 workers straight off the bat. Let's find 6 more people and we can have this eightsome working!
Count me in, also a software developer, and a really good cook so I can fill if I need to
My friend's wife said they need to get "a bitch". Someone who does the tradwife things while both of them can do things they enjoy in life.
This was of course said in a joking tone, they're both very progressive people, and generally share the workload at home. Gender of said bitch wasn't specified either. Just saying this before anyone thinks my friends are horrible people lol
I've said for as long as I can remember, "nice doesn't qualify you to be my friend."
Nice is like acquaintance level shit. The bare minimum of manners required to interact with people in the daily.
I have to admit one of my former coworkers was like that. Not the overt misogyny (that's just objectively disgusting) but anti-vax & trumpist, yet he was a nice guy. Very confusing for me.