Ask Lemmy

I mean those people who you look at them and they have the body and responsibilities of a 43 year old but then you hear them talk about other people or other ethnicities or other situations that people are experiencing elsewhere and the person had might as well be a remorseless 3 year old that was raised wrongly.... The thing that floors me is hen you meet a very old person, Im talking in their 60s or older, and they start spewing some of the most idiotic, narcisisstic garbage a person could ever talk of... 'How have you spent all these years learning nothing?!'

Is it really THAT hard to break free of the chains of your terrible childhood and develop just a little empathy , understanding and humanity towards others? I DEFINITELY didnt have the best childhood seeing as how I was bullied and ostracized for decades , even by my parents lol, but I came to realize that 'Hurt people will hurt people.' so why am I going to go out of my way to be selfish and make more people who are hurt? But on the other hand I see , and Im sure most of you also have seen, that humans are not a very logicsl species sometimes. We have the potential to be more logical than Einstein but it doesnt always play out like that... We as a species do A LOOOT of things based on anti-logic, emotions, our pains, our traumas, or our cognitive distortions and this in turn sometimes creates more 'hurt people' ...

Im not saying that humans have gotten worse over time cause anybody here can open up wikipedia and read about all the awful things we used to do to each other , if anything we have gotten better just a little bit. But why are there STILL in the year of 2026 people who choose to just not 'grow up' ?

TL;DR too many adults , and even seniors , Ive emcountered have illogical and sometimes psychopathic opinions . Why do so many people choose to not grow up and be more understanding?

What is your take on something like this?

Edit: from what Im seeing there are couple takes I ld agree with 5o explain this phenomena

1. there could be neurological disorders like CTE , schizoaffective disorders, etc... that causes an older individual to do and say unusual things ....and hurtful things. Cures for these are barely existent so if someone suffers from them? Theyre just out of luck and hvlave to hope they dont do anything too hurtful

2. The overal lack of mmental health care , mental health breaks, mental health interventions , and psychiatric medication access globally. Some people are lucky and are born in a region that has such things easily. ..others sadly arent...

3. Some people get stuck in a cycle of self destructive cognitive distortions that impairs their ability to grow. there is the possibility that it is a reactive defensive mechanism that one has in response to our very flawed societies that humans have evolved from thousands of years that although it was probably w useful reaction thousands of years ago the current world is very much differenr than it was thousands or years ago . So these cognitive distortions become detrimental more than they are beneficial. Very few people are born innately malicious and/or with an antisocial personality disorder , but a person can clearly become both of these things with enough prompting. And not all humans are the same we all have different genetics ans different stories , all because one oerson reacts in a healthy and self-loving manner to malicious stimulation that doesnt mean all other peoole will do the same. This also has the chance to lead to echo chambering or self imoosed isolation and both if these makes recovery and interventions from external sources more difficult. So basicallt both nurture and nature can play a role in the self-destructive practices abd thought process a person conducts in response to the sad and lonely society of today.

4. Humans havent really evolved to or adapted well to modern society. Like empathy of other groups or for other groups of people on the other side of the planet may be difficult for some people to understand and learn. Humans have created and stuck tio 'outgroups' and 'ingroups' for millenia and very rarely have humans acknowledge the truth that 'We are ALL part of. the ingroup since we are ALL humans' . I dont think this completely excuses a person to treat other groups of people in awful ways though.

5. Soceties that have encouraged ignorance all in the name of listening only to a few politicians and very rich people will clearly create more and more ignorant peoples. And this clearly occurs tor the detriment of those people who cjoose to be ignorant. Being very rich or a politician doesnt mean that you kniw everything that each human needs