# What do people naturally desire? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 20, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963 "2004-07-20T06:45:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Skully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skully)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/1 "2004-07-20T06:45:42Z")
The question was going to be about greed. That is if greed is natural desire of people of is it a result of our society? Though I thought it would be better to ask and try to find out what is it that we will desire in contradiction to what society would want us to desire. Sex is a classic example of what we desire naturally but our society tries to make us have less sex for the good of society. So what else, besides sex, do people naturally desire? ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/2 "2004-07-20T07:35:55Z")
Comfort, ease, warmth, a full stomach. ---
**Author:** ![Dog80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@Dog80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dog80)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/3 "2004-07-20T08:20:45Z")
Take a look here: [The Maslow pyramid](http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/maslow_pyramid.html). I am not sure if that’s what you mean. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/4 "2004-07-20T10:55:45Z")
To live and reproduce. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/5 "2004-07-20T14:42:23Z")
To crush their enemies ,see the driven before them, and hear the lamentation of their women. ---
**Author:** ![mbacko1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@mbacko1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbacko1)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/6 "2004-07-20T15:54:43Z")
The solution to how to work an interesting job that gives you the money so that you can do fun things in your free time with your friends and loved ones without spending all of your free time earning the money. Somewhere there must be an equilibrium. If you find that you are golden. Lots of sex and peach pie would work equally as well. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/7 "2004-07-20T16:02:45Z")
**Skully** , GQ is for questions with factual answers. Matters of opinion belong in IMHO. I’ll move this to IMHO. Please read forum descriptions carefully before you start your next thread. Thank you. - **xash** General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Skully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Skully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skully)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/8 "2004-07-22T06:06:17Z")
I thought that there was a factual answer to this. Guess not… ---
**Author:** ![jttm80](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@jttm80](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jttm80)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/9 "2004-07-22T06:56:03Z")
Salt. I remember hearing somewhere that researchers (yet another bunch with too much time on their hands) had proved that most humans crave salt as much as sex. I certainly do. ---
**Author:** ![Hiding\_Wasp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5e925/32.png) [@Hiding\_Wasp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiding_Wasp)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/10 "2004-07-22T20:36:49Z")
> [@Skully](#): > > So what else, besides sex, do people naturally desire? I find that many people including myself desire to fit in and be excepted by everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Cooper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@Agent\_Cooper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Cooper)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/11 "2004-07-22T20:51:51Z")
My main desire in life is to be left alone. No obligations to anyone in any way. People try to tell me that that is ‘wrong’ to feel that way. From an evolutionary standpoint, perhaps they have a point, but personally, I don’t care what society thinks I should desire. I don’t have any intention to make anyone else see things my way. I just want to be left alone and leave others alone. And it’s actually a lot harder than it would seem… Re: humanity at large … I say Control is the one common thing that all people want. For most of us, controlling our own life is enough. For some, they need control over others. It could manifest in plenty of ways… money or power or making your kid sit in the corner or whatever. For that matter, I’d say the need for control holds true for many other animals as well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/12 "2004-07-22T22:56:59Z")
Most people want all the appropriately flavored salt, fat and sugar they can eat. Sometimes I think if humans put salt on ice-cream they’d never eat anything else. ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-people-naturally-desire/255963/13 "2004-07-22T23:22:11Z")
People desire first to survive, with a minimum of pain and discomfort. All else is secondary. Given enough pain/discomfort, the desire to survive can be overcome. We can’t say that the first desire is to be pain free, because humans can tolerate an amazing amount of pain/discomfort and still wish to survive.