I think people massively overestimate how “good” humans actually are.
Most people treat being good like it’s the default baseline, as if everyone is inherently kind and moral. But what they’re really pointing to isn’t goodness, it’s just basic social behavior: being polite, following rules, not causing problems.
That’s not the same thing as being good. That’s just functioning in society.
Real goodness would mean doing the right thing when it actually costs you something, time, comfort, reputation, money, safety. And when you look at it that way, it becomes a lot rarer than people want to admit.
Most people are polite because it benefits them. They follow social norms because it makes life easier. They act “nice” because there’s some kind of reward. But take that away, and a lot of that behavior disappears.
And yet we still act like humanity is full of “good people,” when in reality we’re mostly just seeing people operating within low-stakes situations where being decent is convenient.
Actual goodness, the kind that involves real sacrifice is the exception, not the rule.
Being polite doesn’t make you a good person. It just means you know how to behave.