I saw a documentary once where a cop said that 10% always have bad intentions, 10% always have good intentions, and 80% are situational. We don't normally encounter the ones with constant bad intentions because most end up in prison.

But it stuck with me because my father was always around really nice people and I realised he faced the opposite of the prison effect. If you're consistently nice to people, you end up in the crowd of people with better intentions. It's a selection bias.

If you want to do a marvelous deep dive on this concept, I highly recommend the Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod. It's a masterful work on the game theory behind how different species/animals/people cooperate and why, and it is a deeply intellectual and rigorous book that uses no more than 6th grade algebra to get its point across. Promise you you'll like it.

If a cop said it, I'm just going to assume it's false.

Bad people don't end up in prison, not for the most part. Bad intention and crime aren't the same thing.

The 10% bad and 10% good is also a strong proxy for poverty/plenty. Desperate people do desperate things.

Also, be careful how you assign "bad". It can either be unethical or illegal, as they are not the same thing.

Poverty/plenty is in the 80%.

Bad means someone who would molest a child because it's a new experience or run over a stranger with a car. A business owner who is proud that the people he hires don't make enough money to eat.

Hitmen who consider the people they kill as rats so they don't get emotional scarred by the murder - they're in the 80%. A tyrant who orders a city pillaged and raped to assert dominance, also in the 80%.

not everyone in prison. many are smart, cautious and/or experienced. I would even say most are not while most people in prison are not "always bad" but situational.

Not everyone in prison is bad and not everyone bad ends up in prison.

But it got me thinking that there are people out there who will stab you just for disagreeing with them. We don't encounter them often because nearly all the people who can't control themselves end up in prison. It's dangerous to assume that people will always act in their own best interest.

I think it’s a good practice to assume that people have good/average intentions. Nobody is the villain in the story they tell themselves. I get farther in life with this philosophy:

Nobody is out to get me. Also, it’s a C+ world out there, with a lot of incompetent people.

Be smart, and be very careful about whether you trust somebody to deliver the outcome that you want. But if they mess it up, come up with some reasons other than “so-and-so is evil” or "so-and-so hates me". It’ll help your state of mind, and also your interactions with them.

Most people just follow the trend. But there are leaders that promote the worst in people. And they have a huge part of attention nowadays.

Put a person in debt for 30+ years so that he has to deliver (most of the time they fake it) and see how toxic that person becomes. I see a lot of managers beeing trapped and replaceable. They are the most toxic people. They will do anything not to loose that job because the bank will take their home. Developers are not much better, but the culture is set by managers.

Everything happens in a good intention, in the person own regards. This may conflict with your values.

i'm the opposite, how to balance it?

Even if they say they have your best interest in mind, they might not, or they might be misinformed about you and act on un-truths. Either way it can be very detrimental.