People Facts

Random facts about people I've noticed, collected or collated along the years... Normally analytical but not always completely objective.

PE: Personnal Experience

• Singular people are usually okay
• People as a group are usually dumb as shit

• Gaussian distribution of behaviors (although tempting, I can't find any correlation with IQ):
  • Extreme conservative, reactionary (low percentile) => will do anything to prevent change
  • Regular conservative (medium percentile) => prefer to prevent change (usually, people that fear something and like the comfort of their situation) (wealthy?)
  • Standard (majority) => will do what they think is most sensible depending on the situation
  • Regular revolutionary (medium percentile) => encourage change (scientists, artists, thinkers, entrepreneurs)
  • Extreme revolutionary (low percentile) => will do anything to change things

• Most people are fundamentally "honest" or naive in that they believe what other people will tell them (deception is not a natural trait, it is learned)
  • That explains why rotten politicians get re-elected every 5 years based on false promises

• Most people don't seek richness or power, they are content with their situation
• As a corollary, people who seek richness or power need other people to reach their goal. My belief is that they're basically predatory sociopaths (army, country leaders, politicians, traders, etc.).

• It seems most people have a strong need to be remembered (fear of death, insignificance, can't accept randomness of life and the Universe)

• People look for sense (life goal), if they can't find it they default to faith

• People have the capacity of "having faith", believing something without any proof of existence. That's something I can't understand at all as it apparently requires the capacity of lying to oneself (self deception).

• Many people's love relationships seem to based on first impressions and don't account for any long term assessment of the partner. The relationship's duration seems to be linked to the duration of the assessment. Long relationships despite short assessment periods seem to be due to:
  • Resilience/tolerance to frustration
  • Fear of being alone (that one is sometimes pathological, e.g. beaten wives)
  • Fear of breaking routine
  • Amazing sex (pleasure stronger than discomfort)
  • Statistical "luck"? (good instinct? super-compatible pheromones?)

• (PE) People seem to be often self-absorbed and have a very narrow field of view.
• (PE) People nowadays seem to be quite confident they can multi-task: they can't!

• People work relatively: only strong changes in ambient conditions actually matter, but basically we can adapt to most situations and finally believe a once extreme situation to be normal if exposed to it for long enough.
  • Weather is the most dramatic change people know on a daily basis but a 15°C day can feel very cold after a long 30°C period, or very hot after a 1°C period.
  • Speed also has a strange effect on people. You don't realize the speed your at but it feels more tangible for someone standing still or going very slow compared to you. Also, speed seems to have an exhilarating effect on some people and some of them crave for it. It appears to also make people more prone to anger if something blocks their speed. It seems to act as a drug to which people are more or less sensitive, like any other drug...

• People obey peer pressure, which is a strong influence in our modern society
• People can easily fall for their low instincts: voyeurism, lust, hubris, apathy, envy (the very sins of the bible)
  • TV counts on that and reinforces that! Especially envy.

• It looks like most people like shiny stuff (diamonds, gems, cars, glitter, etc.). Personally I find this quite crude...

• People need a private place, somewhere secure where they can feel at home, undisturbed, secure

• People crave for new things, all the time
  • Most important of all: information! People are information addicts. The same information doesn't provide much more pleasure than the first time the information was originally discovered.
  • That's why people are so eager to read books, watch movies, visit museums and exhibits, travel around the world (which is an expensive way of collection sensory information)
  • It's cheap to manufacture information. Each person is a source of information on its own (daily life routine is the simplest form of information, getting up in the morning is an information in itself). Some people are more prolific sources of information than others (authors, artists).

• Nature (genetic traits):

• Nurture (acquired, cultural traits):