[jtsiskin]

I don’t think that is true. The ‘median’ person has empathy and care, and would not hurt someone even if they could be totally undetected - but there is a large skew, which makes this true for the ‘mean’ person and thus ‘reality’, if that makes any sense.

As an example: a bowl of candy on Halloween with a “take 2 pieces only please” sign on it. Most people will only take 2. A few people will grab a handful. And one person will come along and take the whole bowl.

[hashkb]

This is false, too. Those bowls were always empty by the time I got to them.

Edit: ever been at a long line for the bathroom at a big concert or sporting event? Or driven on the roads? There's always someone cheating, often making it more dangerous or painful to be that median person.

[chii]

if you look at the iterated version of your example, you will see that everyone will tend towards being the guy who grabs the whole bowl, or risk missing out on the candy.

Therefore, the parent poster's argument is actually true, even if the median person believes themselves to be empathetic.

[hashkb]

Yes. I'm not saying we choose to be bad. I'm saying we sort of have to, and billionaires get the choice, and still choose to generally do more damage than than any of us will ever have the opportunity to attempt.