I wasn't happy at all to end up associating with people who were zero-sum, transactional, and only valued wealth and fame. That can promote a constant sense of insecurity and lack of trust, which prevents the formation of true connections to others (which I've found to be important).
I've been very happy to find myself with groups of people, in work contexts and elsewhere, who try to care for others while pursuing their personal goals. There's a sense of belonging and security.
People like good things. They'll go out of their way to expend time, energy and money to have "good". You could be the source of that good and receive all of these if you try to truly understand others' view of what's good.
Coercive systems do happen, but rarely last, because people will also spend time, energy and money to get rid of them.
Just don't be fooled that there's a universal moral code. What's good for one might not be for another. You might appreciate "Science and Human Behaviour" by B.F. Skinner if you're interested in the mechanics of it.
If you indeed lived morally you probably can’t know this.
People do generally want to be good people but it is a fairly basic don't-upset-the-neighbours form of good. You can't rely on them to consider any specific act as being good or bad.
I was taught that a "good person" tries to actually care about their fellow humans and other lifeforms on this planet enough to try to live a life that contributes toward a positive future that we'll all benefit from, while choosing not to support the hatred, greed, and ignorance of those people who would work toward the opposite of that. Problem with that sorta fantasy is that it doesn't exist except in a really rare handful of "mutant" humans who are generally killed (or "destroyed" in other ways) for their beliefs that we could have a "better world" that isn't built on suffering and greed.
As for "care", that is one of those unreasonable expectations. You can't tell who cares by looking at them and it doesn't do anyone much good for someone to be caring but incompetent. We get a lot more out of hyper-competent people who don't care but nonetheless do a very good job of making the world better.
Whether you see it or not, the vast majority of people /are/ generally good, and more importantly they want to be around other people who value being good, not being a jerk.
Folks who are all about money and power hang in different circles; I can’t speak to their happiness levels, but regular folks steer clear of them and warn others when they get burned.
Stay on the good team. There’s plenty of us and we welcome you. What can I do to help?
Nothing you can do to help me specifically. I'm a lost cause at this point. I see no way back from where I'm at. I literally see zero hope for the future of humanity or this truly amazing planet we were fortunate enough to populate for a short while. If you truly do see some sort of future that doesn't end in dystopia or apocalypse, then you can help by doing everything in your power to work tirelessly toward contributing to that future. That's all. I'd help if I could, but I'm physically, spiritually, and emotionally entirely too "broken" in every way at this point to see any way that I could do anything that would turn any of this mess around in even the slightest way.
I am reminded of what Fred Rogers would say in times like these.
Fred Rogers often told this story about when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news: "My mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world."If he were still alive, I'd vote Fred Rogers for Emperor of Earth all day long. One of the rare few humans who I'd truly label a genuinely good person. Not a hateful or greedy bone in that man's body as far as I've ever read, seen, or heard about him. I suspect the same of Jim Henson, too. Probably Carl Sagan as well. Maybe also Neil deGrasse Tyson for a more modern (still alive) example of a "good person" (as far as I can tell)? I believe "good people" still exist, but they're sadly not in positions of "power" (and probably wouldn't want to be). A shame, because the ones we've got in charge of things right now won't be happy until the planet is literally on fire from pole to pole and one of them has all the everything all to themselves...
I've always found this sentiment to exist exclusively in privileged and overly educated, left wing, Western circles. It is an extension of the philosophy built around tabula rasa, and posits that individuals are not to blame for their actions, but rather society. When someone harms another, it wasn't because they wanted to harm another, but because society failed to instill the correct values.
Even a cursory inspection of history would disabuse one of this notion, but the myth persists. I suspect it's because it clashes with another fundamental privileged and overly educated, left wing, Western belief: that inequality is always caused by injustice. That it cannot be a normal and expected outcome of people making different decisions. This fanciful ideal suggests that we should all be equally successful, with the same possessions and jobs and homes and values.
Back here in the real world, with zero exceptions, we know that power inevitably corrupts even the most chaste and moral of people. Humans are both a product of their environment and possess free will. Both. At the same time. Many people choose to use their free will to harm others, and in places where the rule of law fails, this proportion explodes. This suggests that some very large proportion of society chooses to not hurt others not because of some innate morality, but because of the consequences.
Of course I understand all of this conflicts so deeply with your beliefs that you will choose to dismiss them out of hand. Feel free to consider my comment nothing more than some superficial thoughts.
No mate, the entire world is -not- like this. Thank your lucky stars you haven't had to deal with this.
I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not a good person anymore. Not really. I'm the broken wreckage of what used to be a good person. I want to be a good person, but I was born on the wrong planet, or the wrong timeline, or the wrong corner of the multiverse, or whatever. I don't live on a planet where what I want is even in the realm of possibility. Too much hatred, greed, and ignorance here for the life I would prefer to live.
You obviously can not build a cohesive society just by hoping people will want to be good, they have to have a generally shared understanding of what it means to be good.