Ask Lemmy

I generally try to do more good than bad, and I try not to hurt anyone. But good people probably don't hope that the US president and most of the billionaires stop breathing...

Not really

I feel like I do good things just because they make people like me. Idk.

I don't like hurting other people.

Nowadays that qualifies as good.

The bar is so low I don't think I have trouble passing as one of the good ones.

I try really hard to not be a bad person.

My friends, family and I believe most of my colleagues think so

My intentions are to promote human flourishing, and I try to follow my intentions. If I was talking about someone else, I would unequivocally qualify that as being a good person. So by transitive purposes I just have to qualify myself as one.

I reject the premise of this question.

I think I've met a handful of "good" people in my life. I'm not one of them.

I try my best. I lead life with empathy for all people and creatures. We've all only got one world after all.

I’ve stopped caring. The worst people in my country decide everything for the rest of us. At this point I don’t care about being good, I just want to exert my will and trod them into the dirt at every opportunity

Yes. I'm not perfect but I try to do positive things and minimize the harm/impact of my life on the world around me.

I'm definitely not a bad person.

Eh, I try. I think I succeed more often than not, but most bad people think they're good, right? I try to calibrate against the broader society as a whole, but it often seems like society isn't really aligned with goodness anyway. So here I am, trying to suss out the good parts of society and align with that, and trying to suss out the bad parts and follow my own moral compass there. But again, bad people probably generally think they're good, so it's a bit of a conundrum innit?

Minimize harm to others, and try to help as much as you can. Except sometimes harming bad people somewhat is good, and sometimes help is counterproductive.

I'm confident that I am a person. I try to emulate what good is like. Life is hard.

~

I make it easy for someone to argue that I am.

But I'm also difficult and hard to connect with.

I don't know, and it just feels wrong to say myself that I am (feels like this meme).

I feel like I'm a good person. My anxiety tells me I'm not and people hate me though so there's that.

I'm fortunate enough that it's not hard to be good. I've rarely, if ever, been forced into situations where I have to cause any kind of hardship to anyone to get my needs met. I try to leverage the privilege I've been afforded to act in ways that are more globally conscientious (i.e., I have the time and money to choose ethical alternatives to Amazon, live in a city with public transit, can afford non-meat alternatives and still have a nutritionally complete diet, etc.)

I try to be socially conscientious. I try to limit the problems I cause to others. I take care of people where I can and say hello to my neighbors. I give to charity and sponsor artists. I've broken up a street fight and walked a stranger through a scary part of town because she asked me to.

But if I had to make the really hard choice I'm not sure if I could. "I'm not a coward I've just never been tested. I'd like to think if I was I would pass."

All people think they are good humans. Even Hitler thought he was doing the best for his people. Good intentions don't make net positive people though.

I know with some of my strong beliefs ( not counting people who willingly use genAI when not required of them as people ) that I am by no means a good perspn by a few standards.

I feel like I'm a good dad. I'm on my own. His mom took off without warning and ruined her relationship with him. I have been his only safety for a decade. She's around, but doesn't give a shit about anything that matters to him.

Everything else, I try to be a decent person. I don't take what isn't mine and try to be whatever my mouth says. I don't really think there is much more to being "good".

Yes. No qualifiers.

We are all doing the best we can with what we have. All the humble "no" respondents are too.

I try to be. I can’t say I always succeed, but I try.

Meh, according to who? Good and evil are subjective. God's are subjective. Morals are flexible. I am fucking good as fuck compared to many. I am also selfish and hateful compared to many. Also, this question is simplistic and childish.

I don't ascribe to those particular metrics.

Probably not.

no, and frankly I never want to be.

people who think they are "good people" stop striving to be better.

I give to my community when they ask. I help those who need help. I try my best to make sure everyone around me is safe.

Not looking for clout. Not looking for praise. Just doing the things that need to be done because they need to be done.

That doesn't make me a good person because I'm just a person.

I was a better person when I was a kid.

Negative, I am a meat popsicle.

Yes, but I am an asshole at the same time

Better as I get older at least. Other people seem to think I am a good person but I guess we all have impossible standards for ourselves. By Dorothy Parker standards no. "If you have two coats you stole one from the poor." I don't have literally two coats but a dozen sweaters, which are short season items here.

To the extent you can be good and live within the system, yes.

If standing before God and he asks if I did everything I possibly could for those who needed it most, no, I have not, nor have I always been a friend to myself.

Like must people I have kneejerk opinions and reactions, though I analyze them before I let them loose. I ask myself "what would a good person do?" and then I do that.

I don't like the person I used to be. I'd like to think i'm a descent person now.

Overall yeah, I’m a pretty good person. I care about others, I give my time and money to those less fortunate, I try to be kind, non judgmental and helpful to everyone not just people I like. I’ve struggled a lot in my life mentally and physically, I grew up ugly and disabled and as cliche as it is to say it, it’s made me a better person.

I don't like to say "good person" and "bad person" because I feel like it implies that there is some objective scale of goodness that people can be compared to, and I think that is simply not the case. So I would rather think of this question as "Do you have a positive opinion of yourself?"

No, no I don't. My opinion of myself is extremely negative.

I think I put more good into the world than bad. Whether I put in more good than I've consumed, I wonder about that a lot. I've been very fortunate in life.

God, no. But I’ve been much worse.

Define "good".

I'm not Fred Rogers good. I know that much.

I try to be.

Leonard Cohen's last song released days before he died was called "You Want It Darker." One of the verses is:

"They're lining up the prisoners and the guards are taking aim, I struggled with some demons, they were middle class and tame, I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim, You want it darker, we kill the flame."

Anyway, that's me, in the middle class. I could be better, but however bad I am, I'm still on the tame level.