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Do people get what they deserve generally?

marsmellow

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Jun 30, 2008
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A lot of people seem to think that people get what they deserve in life. I wonder if that's true.

A few days ago, a 19 year old kid got beat with a baseball bat down the street from me. For no apparent reason. Now, he's in a coma. He might end up having permanent brain damage from it. He might die.

The thing which surprised me, was that people around here keep asking things like why was he out on the road late at night, was he drinking, was he a 'bad' kid, and other things like that. And it seems like they thought that these things might excuse the beating. Because the boy might have deserved it. According to them.

The opposite of this, is that people tend to think that if someone is wealthy and happy, that there are good reasons why they are. Because they did something right. They made the right choices in life, so they get rewarded for it.

I don't know about that idea.

It seems like most of this boils down to luck. If the kid who got beat was in a different place at that time, he probably would not have gotten beat up. If the rich happy person had been born in a poor village in Africa, their life would be a lot different.

I think, people don't usually get what they deserve. The quality of your life is largely determined by social circumstances and luck.

What do you think?
 
I agree with you, life is a poker game, a jet engine could land on the Dalai Lama's face at any time really.
 
The quality of your life is largely determined by social circumstances and luck.

This is pretty truth bearing but, im not really sure, i mean if you believe in karma then yes, people get what they deserve, but honestly im not very sure where i stand on this, i haven't put much thought into it. kinda a neat topic imo.
 
Nope. At certain points you could say some random guy got what he deserved(and its the truth) but theres no possible way to have everyone get what they deserve.
 
Nope. At certain points you could say some random guy got what he deserved(and its the truth) but theres no possible way to have everyone get what they deserve.
I'm not asking if everyone does.

It's easy to say that some people do, and some people don't. Of course there are always going to be exceptions to the rule. But on average, do they or not?

And there is another thing I wonder about... what makes us "deserve" any bad or good thing any more than any other person does?
 
He did deserve it or he didn't deserve it, regardless, it is naive for one to deem ethier statement as true because of the absence of knowledge and facts present about the individual himself.

This kid who got owned might have bullied another kid at school witch could have contributed to the fact that the bully victim had killed himself. This example leads me to believe that is it impossible to determine if anyone for that matter, deserves anything or not.
The most we can say about this situation is that he was unlucky and most likely at the wrong place at the wrong time.


This is just an example :

Two girls are caught lighting a fire and are both charged with arson.
One of the girls upholds employment at the local factory and the other girl is unemployed.
Who gets the upper hand in this situation if people have tried to make speculations in regards to who deserved it or not?
The girl with a job of course, even though it makes no difference whatsoever.
All that remains clear from this situation is that 90% of the general public think in this manner and are quite literally morons and always will be.
 
There are two rules I operate on, and both dictate my opinion on this:

1. Every action has a reaction, the latter usually indirect. In other words: every action WILL reverberate eternally.

2. Humans, like other incarnate beings, are completely driven by circumstance (pain being the praemium mobile), and therefore intent and "deserving" are as irrelevant as free will.

Both rules depends on the idea that we are completely ignorant and helpless in the randomness of the world.

So when I voice my emotional response that so and so deserved a bad consequence because they did something bad, my analytical side recognizes this as an emotional response and knows that no one deserves anything, good or bad.

So in a way, my opinion is almost the polar opposite of that "The Secret" idea...
 
I believe in probably not the most popular, but imho the most 'scientific' concept of karma. I'll try to explain it with my own words.
If ones action arises from negative emotions (anger, hatred, fear etc) one is bound to create more negative phenomena into the world. That already is the karma 'punishing' the negative one.
If ones action arises from positive emotions (love, compassion, kindness etc) one is bound to create more positive phenomena into the world. That already is the karma 'rewarding' the positive one.
There is no hidden secret karma for your old deeds, which will creep up to you for an unknowable reason.

So, if some guy gets beat up, there could have been stuff related to the matter, that he could have controlled and there could not have been. In no way this is meant to justify the ones, who beat him up. Violence is never a solution.

Edit:
Just adding another way of describing what I already tried to express from another forum on the same subject:
"Its not an inherent "property" that "dishes out reward and punishment".
Its much simpler than that. Everything in the conventional, functional world is subject to cause and effect, our minds are a part of conventional reality and are therefore subject to the same circumstances.
If you are consistently thinking about and carrying out a negative or positive act, you are building causes and conditions for negative or positive results, based solely upon conditioning and functional reality. Not some higher power or force that rewards or punishes."
 
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no

of course, the pair "action - reaction" is valid

but an overwhelming quantity of other events that occur in life have no relation with deserving them or not
 
There is no such thing as Karma. It is all a random crap shoot. There ought to be justice but there isn't. Sorry if this doesent help
 
The thing which surprised me, was that people around here keep asking things like why was he out on the road late at night, was he drinking, was he a 'bad' kid, and other things like that. And it seems like they thought that these things might excuse the beating. Because the boy might have deserved it. According to them.

Stupid people.

The opposite of this, is that people tend to think that if someone is wealthy and happy, that there are good reasons why they are. Because they did something right. They made the right choices in life, so they get rewarded for it.

This is probably true, but has no correlation with mysticism.
 
re: topic, no. billiard balls, probability clouds. many layers of meaning and causality exist in a sense but i don't see any sort of pattern/correlation between who does right and who gets the larger share of resources or who gets beat in the head. on average. gaining awareness can lead to increased chance of survival, higher or lower mood (lol), but that only tilts probabilities, it never offers certainty

how bad must africans and southern asians be?

do the people who wind up in prison really differ, that often, from the society they come from or us? like half are in there for drugs
 
Well, i believe life is what you make of it, with luck to define your direction.

That kid, well, maybe he deserved it. Maybe he was drinking and some black dudes were walking past and him being the racist that he is(hypothetically) he called them a bunch of niggers and got his ass beaten.

Honestly, we dont know. But who is to say what we do and dont deserve? Why does one man deserve a down filled pillow, and another man sponge? Why does one man deserve a beautiful wife and another, a fat ugly trailer trash bitch?

Does the man with the down pillow deserve it because he earns more? Does he deserve to earn more? Is his work actually harder than the man who has the sponge pillow, or is it just that he was brought up being able to speak really well to people, and thus aced an interview and sits in an office doing jack shit and getting paid loads to do it?

Does the man deserve a beautiful wife because hes got a big dick and a defined jaw? Did he deserve that big dick and defined jaw? He just happened to be the product of someone, most likely good looking too, that decided to fuck a woman and get her pregnant.


Once you can answer the question of, what entitles you to what you 'deserve', then i think we can answer if people 'get what they deserve'.
 
That kid, well, maybe he deserved it. Maybe he was drinking and some black dudes were walking past and him being the racist that he is(hypothetically) he called them a bunch of niggers and got his ass beaten.
i'd hardly call this example valid. he's not deserving of that, in this instance or any other

pain and suffering --> more pain, inner and outer

yeah there are some forces that hurt us when we do something we should have learned not to do, and forces that help us out if we're following a relatively "enlightened" path. but these forces, at least for now, are nothing compared to the forces of the "rest of the universe", that which is other than human. until some point in the future perhaps, we are too small compared to the universe for our will or our good behavior to really contribute to what goes on in the universe more than nature itself (nature minus humans...since humans are part of nature)
 
I think people want the world to be meaningful, just, and aesthetic. People who label themselves cynics or nihilists are not immune to such inclinations.

My personal belief is that there may well be a meaningful master plan regarding human events but I don't think human attempts to connect the dots ever get at meaning or truth in the big sense. I also consider that there may be no big overall plan. Either way I don't think our ascribing good or bad happenings that befall people as the universe making things right is logical, spiritual or useful. I do think it is very common though, even in people who are making an effort to avoid this very sort of fallacy.
 
I think that it's entirely obvious that people often don't get what they deserve. Bad things happen to good people, people benefit from doing bad things, and many many people don't get what we feel they should. I mean, "life's not fair" is something I constantly heard as a child.
I agree with Jamshyd that the idea of cosmic justice doesn't stand up to analysis.
 
I disagree with any kind of generalisation at all.

Every individual & every circumstantial event is unique unto itself. Sure events can unfold from preceding events yet each event is it's own.

You get what you deserve
You get what you earn
You reap what you sow

Each of these three statements are the same depending upon perspective yet individual perception could be vastly different.

One statement can not measure all, apart from maybe; It just is.
 
I don't feel the word 'deserve' has much to do with who gets what in Life.

I agree with the OP.
 
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