Right - totally see all of your points as valid. But the thing is that our experiences condition us throughout the years.

I came from a family where both my father, mother, and brother physically abused me, although the emotional abuse stuck through the decades after escaping the situation.

That apartment situation - that happened one month after dropping out of a college that I was forced to go to by my mother because it was in-town and kept me at home (continuing the abuse cycles). I was forced to move back in with my mother and felon step-dad.

Because the rental markets were fucked at the time it was months before I was able to finally escape etc etc.

Look - I can tell you my sob story, and trust me - that's exactly what it is... but the thing is I've been conditioned to not trust people by default until they are able to earn trust through actions (not words).

I get the whole "look for the helpers" Mr. Rogers thing, but to me it's human nature that only some of us are capable of this compassion and empathy... And, to add to that complexity that compassion/empathy can appear/disappear as we are emotionally and functionally dynamic to the context which we are in, or simply "people change".

Concluding, I re-iterate my personal and anecdotal experience/opinion:

Deep down most folks are sad sacks of fear and hate.

Our dissonance on this topic likely comes from different experiential backgrounds. To me, it's OK to disagree on this.