this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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Memes

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[–] MoonManKipper@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Or they’ve just met a reasonable number of a*holes…

[–] Dialectical_Idealist@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

If you only saw a bear in a circus, you would think its nature was to ride a unicycle.

It's also intellectually dishonest to ignore examples of communal behavior, such as gift economies and communal farrming, as somehow not counting when we're considering "human nature". There are exceedingly many examples of selflessness even in this individualist hellhole we built for ourselves.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Not quite, if that were the case the statement would be "because assholes". By blaming "human nature" they're self identifying as one of the assholes.

Assholism is a diverse group with many discrete types of sub-asshole.

[–] StumblingWasabi@lemmy.today 4 points 17 hours ago

Not necessarily. People could have an outlook similar to "a person is smart, people are idiots"

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

It's the nature of humanity that in any reasonably sized group, there are always a few assholes.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Agreed, but IMHO that is a different conjecture to that of the meme.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 hours ago

I don't think so. Good things can't happen because of human nature: making good things happen involves groups making decisions, and in every group there are bound to be some assholes because that's human nature, that limits the kinds of good things that can happen.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 2 points 20 hours ago

And that they've observed that once groups reach a certain size, it's inevitable that the group contains at least one asshole.

It's like the fable of the scorpion and the frog. It doesn't mean that it's impossible to cross the river. It just means that you need a more complex plan than just carrying the scorpion across on your back.