Nice Guy

Tips fedora

M'property

It depends also who you are. That person in the comic saying he’s nice is a guy and not the of the group of people(women) that are so aggressively disrespected. How would he know?

It also falls into the “decorum” sphere. Someone who isn’t yelling while they’re throwing your rights in the garbage is not nice. Someone opening the gas chamber door for you is not nice. Surface level means nothing and it has always meant nothing but it takes a lot of energy for the vast majority of people to be thinking deeper than that all the time so they fall back on easy, high-level observations.

Now, I won’t say someone can’t be turned around. Many are pretty far gone, though, and it’s not their victims’ job to be nice and supportive to their oppressors. So yes, they might just be humans but the warning given above needs to be more of a “he’s kinda a misogynist right now but I’ve been working on him and he’s getting better. Let me know if you’re uncomfortable at any point though and I’ll take care of it.”

It hadn't occurred to me before, but sometime about a year ago I ran into a group of guys who are passionate about nature: talking about preserving woods, how majestic deer could be standing in the mist in the early morning, how much they liked a particular species of bird because of it's call, expressing concern about civilization's impact on the health and well-being about animals.

They were all hunters. I honestly believe they really did respect and admire the animals they were hunting; they didn't want them to suffer, they weren't out specifically to cause pain. I still struggle with the dichotomy, but I have no doubt they saw themselves as animal lovers. I think there are probably trophy hunters who are just in it for the ego, but I believe a lot of hunters are in it to get out in the woods, away from civilization, and on their way, commune with nature.

Don't get me wrong: there are other ways of achieving that without hunting, and there are malicious, hurtful, broken people. It's probably more common that what we'd attribute to petty meanness is simply a different set of ethics - and, no, I'm not saying all ethics are equally good or right or valid. But the people who hold them can be - as you say - perfectly polite, nice, kind, thoughtful people. They just hold unjustifiable opinions about some things.

That's the joke and it's good you picked up on it.

People need to face the consequences of their beliefs within the circle of their loved ones. If that fails, the next social circle upwards like their friends. But right now it feels like even that has failed and now people are okay with letting awful beliefs fester in their neighbors because it's "politics". That's not okay, as this comic relies on.

So I’m going to share something agent_nycto said once, because it works very well on people like this:

I don't think you should be quiet, it makes them feel like everyone is agreeing with them and makes everyone miserable. Time to introduce you to my favorite game to play with conservatives, Politics Judo!

So you hear them rant about a thing. Some dumbass talking point. Let's use gun control. It's pretty easy to know in advance what the talking points are since they never shut up and parrot the same problem and solution over and over. "Shouldn't take guns, it's a mental problem not a gun problem".

Things are basically boiled down to a problem and a solution. A lot of people try to convince people that the problem isn't what people think it is, and that's hard to do. Even if they are just misinformed, it feels like trying to dismiss their fears.

So what you do is you agree with the problem, then use lefty talking points as the solution.

"Oh yeah, gun violence is pretty bad! And I love the Constitution, we shouldn't mess with that!" (Use small words and also throw in some patriotism, makes them feel like you're on their side. You want to sound like a right wing media con artist) "so instead of taking guns away, we should instead start having more, free, mental health care in this country. Since it's a mental health problem and these people are crazy, that is the solution that makes the most sense!" (Don't try to get them to agree to your solution, just state it as the obvious one)

It becomes weaponized cognitive dissonance. Their brains fry because you said the things you should to agree with them, flagged yourself as an ally, but then said the thing they were told is the bad and shouldn't want.

If they try to argue with your solution, rinse and repeat to a different talking point. "Oh yeah it might cost more, and we shouldn't have to pay more for it, so we should get the rich people who are screwing average hard working Americans over by not paying taxes to do that. We should shut down tax loopholes and increase funding to the IRS so they can go after them instead of the little guy"

Always sound like you're agreeing with them, but giving solutions that they disagree with that seem to be off topic but are related.

Either they will get flustered and stop, or they will slip up and say something racist or sexist or something, and then you can have HR bust them. Document it and also see if you're in a single party consent state.

i had a coworker who simped for trump and musk. we are not even from the us.

oh he also bragged he and part of his family estranged some close gay relative of his that really needed a lot of help from them once.

very in favor of the war on drugs, hated weed and stuff, but did some dangerous pharmaceuticals he acquired somehow.

had the grindset mentality that i can see could potentially bring him to collapse, on a place that already overworked its employees.

barely slept and used said meds to work harder. theres probably more.

he was nice though. said his pleases and thank yous, had his coworkers backs. he was relied upon because he knew his shit (but it probably cost a piece of himself)

i dont understand these people at all or why we normalized this... strangeness? i honestly can't explain how the surrealism felt like. believe it or not that was tame for that workplace.

To get along with humans.

There I fixed it. 😁

Try seemingly open-minded questions about what they think. Gently introducing questioning will avoiding confrontation can work to shake their beliefs. It can be satisfying to see them become more nuanced as they try to explain.

I imagine something akin to a draft or arranged marriages. You're not married, you're not married, congrats you're now married.

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.

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

Raymond is not nice to society.

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.

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.

Robot wife though? I might consider.

Well, two wives just seems excessive

Nice is like acquaintance level shit. The bare minimum of manners required to interact with people in the daily.