What bothers you the most

[exchemist]

yup, that's what I call original sin.

You know, it went through my mind to say exactly that, but in the end I didn't.

 

[Revoltingest]

It really burns my bacon....
Not everyone thinks as I do.

The above might sound humorous,
but I considered the question, & this
is the root of all trouble in the world.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Well, living in Egypt, you will be the expert!

A true expert knows $5 isn't enough nowadays.

Though we in the UK are far from free of it, especially with the current government.

Must be something in the pound both in Egypt and the UK. Corrupt currency! It can't be anything else, right?

 

[Father Heathen]

While there might be greater issues, I would consider the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of children the most emotionally troubling.

 

[Kathryn]

I really hate mouth noises.

 

[Twilight Hue]

What bothers you the most in the current world..
-poverty
-hunger
-disease
-corruption
-greed
-child trafficing
-homelessness
Etc etc..

I think we all would agree these are all problems in the world today. Does one bother you more than the others?

If you could rid the world of only one what would it be?

Or list your own.

Myself.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I really hate mouth noises.

Especially in ads.

Fingernails on a chalkboard.

 

[Sand Dancer]

What bothers you the most in the current world..
-poverty
-hunger
-disease
-corruption
-greed
-child trafficing
-homelessness
Etc etc..

I think we all would agree these are all problems in the world today. Does one bother you more than the others?

If you could rid the world of only one what would it be?

Or list your own.

IMO, greed causes the other things. People are motivated to do horrible things if they get money from it. Disease would be the only thing that wouldn't apply.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Fair point. The trouble is that those vices are intrinsic to human nature, so are ineradicable. Corruption on the other hand is something we can do something about, via political system with public accountability and, critically, a free press.

India, I see, is currently going backwards in this respect.BBC India offices searched by income tax officials

Perhaps they are intrinsic, but we could do much to ensure that many aren't so successful in the effects from such. And much like the corruption or exploitation, in that more suitable rules and laws might see less of this - along with better education perhaps.

India is becoming rather worrying.

 

[F1fan]

Corruption. Without a doubt.

It is corruption that spawns virtually all the others. It is corruption that prevents good laws and their enforcement. It is corruption that stops government improving the conditions of the people. It is corruption that prevents aid programmes from reaching the people it is intended to help.

We had a talk on this at Shell, when I worked for them. The background was a new company drive on the due diligence required when selecting contractors. The speaker made the point that almost all the bad governance in the world, and the resulting ill effects of that, can be traced back to corruption. (My wife subsequently had to turn down two contractors on major projects, one in Mexico and one I think in India, because of this, which got her and the company into trouble with local politicians who stood to benefit.)

My first thought was authoritarian leadership, and the many citizens that are in favor of this sort of governing. War, corruption, oppression, inequality, etc. all inevitably flows from authoritarian leadership.

Obviously authoritarian leaders get support from a section of the population that is highly insecure, and once they attain power it's hard to get them out. Look at putin and Trump as examples of election fraud. Brazil survived their attempted coup.

 

[JustGeorge]

That and people who talk too loudly on their phones.

That used to bother me, but now I just get happy because they're talking, instead of looking down at their screen and bumping into things.

My husband was in the dairy section at the grocery store, and had the fridge door open. While trying to grab his selection, all the sudden he heard "thump!" Some guy was so busy texting he's ran smack into the door(and pretty hard, too). The guy angrily spewed "you think this is funny?" to which my laughing husband said "yeah! I really do!" Stunned, he hurried off...

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What bothers you the most in the current world

It appears that man will not be able to avoid self-decimation. He's just not smart or decent enough. I've gone from admiring the human race to the opposite, admiring only the tiny contingent that is responsible for intellectual and moral progress.

But that's not what bothers me the most, at least not anymore. What bothers me the most is not what man will do to himself. It's the upcoming suffering of the beasts.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Perhaps selfishness or greed might be the tops for me, given that these so often will then invoke corruption and/or exploitation so as to affect so many. And we probably can't solve many others on the list if we can't get rid of what basically causes them.

To add to this - as to selfishness and greed being an intrinsic characteristic of humans or humanity.

I don't have any expert knowledge as to anthropology but from what I have gathered about earlier peoples in our history - and often represented today by the few traditional societies still extant and studied by people like Jared Diamond and others - it seems that the selfishness and greed might have come more from population growth and from our living apart more as individuals. When we existed as much smaller groupings, it is likely that the hierarchies were much flatter and also there was little in the way of personal possessions then, so perhaps we can blame such negative attributes on our success as a species (numbers growing exponentially), or we just haven't found the right manner of governance. But even as behaviour within various traditional groups no doubt varied, so did attitudes to other neighbouring groups - as to peaceful coexistence or conflict - and often this was down to resource availability, so even then there perhaps were the seeds of greed being sown - but out of necessity to survive probably.

As for current societies, one might cite Communism here, as a failed example of an attempt to make life more equal - as it probably was when we lived in smaller groups. And I suspect that the rise in wealth, together with the steep hierarchies that tend to exist now, and the fact that we often live in societies not knowing so many of our neighbours, has made so many more selfish and greedy, especially when jealousness is factored in. This latter also when it seems to many that wealth is often down to inheritance or exploitation, such that 'why not me' so often is asked and where many can do something about it - as to acquiring wealth. Insecurity might also be a factor.

The previous is probably why so many of us see left-wing beliefs as being better overall (for the majority at least) - however this manifests in reality - and why the right-wing is more seen as simply coping with what we have ended up with and which doesn't bode well for the future. Given that friction, crime, and troubles are generally correlated with large wealth differences, as is exploitation and/or corruption. Plus we seem to be eating the planet with our lust for possessions, along with destroying our habitats and with destroying so much of non-human life. This can hardly be called success.

So personally I don't believe that selfishness or greed are necessarily inherent in humans, but that we have failed to govern our larger numbers that successfully. Perhaps AI will sort all this out in the future.