People Facts

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

GEN: Generality (if not tagged otherwise, always consider the fact as a generality).
PE: Personnal Experience.
PO: Personnal Opinion/Belief.
GAU: Gaussian distribution.
UNI: Uniform distribution.

Random Facts

• People one at a time are usually okay
• People as a group are usually dumb as shit

• (GAU) 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.).
  • The problem with power, money or possession in general is that people craving for these tend to never be satisfied, leading to eternal pursuit and eternal dissatisfaction
  • When dealing with large groups of influential people (mega corporations), the balance of power is so strong that this eternal quest for domination shifts the entire human ecosystem and leads to dramatic inequalities

• 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).

• People can only reach gradual levels of understanding and levels can only occur one after another, you can't skip one
  • Some things you can't learn unless you experience them yourself, this knowledge often happens as a revelation (satori), however small the revelation is
  • You can't force people to your point of view unless they have lived similar experiences
  • To make people see from your point of view, you need to make them question themselves. Violence solves nothing, a good explanation might...
  • What I mean is that, for example, you can't make people understand the importance of protecting the environment when they don't even have the basic means of survival, or don't have a minimum level of wealth and satisfaction: there are 2 levels between their situation and yours.

• Self-confidence is the key to success
  • Self-confidence reinforces itself leading to a virtuous circle (especially strong in a couple, a group or a family)
  • Inversely, lack of self-confidence also reinforces itself, leading to a vicious circle
  • Belonging to the group of "normal people" is not a pre-requisite but a good initial pool of self-confidence
  • Adversely, any non-standard defect, especially a physical one, is often a good initial pool of lack of self-confidence

• People have 2 beasts to feed and fall into 2 categories:
  • Virtuous circle behavior (Yang), the person is self-confident, trusts others, makes plans, is an optimist, see an enjoyable future. These persons often attract opportunities and other people, the circle perpetuates itself unless a (negative) dramatic event occurs.
  • Vicious circle behavior (Yin), the person lacks self-confidence, doubts his-herself, is the target of apathy, is a pessimist (some would say a realist), for whom the future seems locked and full of uncertainties. These persons repel others and deny themselves opportunities due to their depressive nature, as for the other, the circle perpetuates itself unless a (positive) dramatic event occurs.

• People crave attention: they want to be loved, considered, respected and/or noticed
  • On the importance of look and attitude
  • This is more remarkable with teenagers where tastes and affinities are still to be discovered and often shown ostensibly, without restraint or modesty (these are acquired with age)
  • (PE) Finding these ostensible marks of look and attitude in older adults is often proof of immaturity, or a false sense of the surrounding reality (maybe reinforced by belonging to a group that hasn't disbanded since early years)

• (PO) People's state of mind is fixed: people are already what they are from the start, their core personality only gets reinforced and affirmed with age.
  • Not sure when the "start" is: is this a real core genetic personality disposition or a trait acquired at a very early age?
  • What is sure is that the "modeling period" (if it exists) doesn't last for more than 10 years

• 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.
  • I consider self-absorption as a child characteristic
  • Inversely, I consider empathy and altruism as an adult characteristic
  • It's my personal belief that our modern period of time is one perpetual entertainment and many people of adult age are still behaving like children (are we afraid to embrace adult life? Is the period so frightening that we cling to sweet childhood memories? Have we been too spoiled by this consumerist age that we want to continue to receive gifts and be the center of attention?)
• (PE) People nowadays seem to be quite confident they can multi-task: they can't!

• People "work" in a relative manner: 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...

• For equal competences, people usually trust more the persons they don't know personally (i.e. known only by reputation) over the persons they know directly.

• People need a private place, somewhere secure where they can feel at home, undisturbed. Need of a minimal territory. Helps to keep one's sanity.
  • Cars are good substitutes as "Portable homes"
  • It's most likely people can become extremely violent if anyone trespasses on their territory

• 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):