I think the human race is generally stupid, at least taken as a whole. As Tommy Lee Jones once told Will Smith:

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals, and you know it." ("K" from Men In Black)

What defines good and what defines bad when it comes to a species? Are ticks good or bad, are flies good or bad, or jackals, hyenas, sharks? The question is meaningless.

I would like to think that when we are born we are neutral, after that it is up to the village, society to teach what is needed and what will work to sustain life. So far I do not believe we are doing a good job, but we will see.

"There is good and there is evil" ~ Seymour Freely

Humans may well be neutral, since the ideas good and bad are a spectrum either side of a mean, and since it is a human set average which that spectrum is centered on, it is likely that equal numbers fall on both sides. Though no doubt we would all prefer it, from a selfish point of view, if more, OTHER, people were higher up the spectrum towards the good end, but that is itself a selfish thing.

It is also arguable that evolution made us averaged along a whole vast set of spectrums, which served the survival and reproduction of an ape living with limited technology on the plains of Africa. A situation very different from that which we now find ourselves in.

It would however be a mistake to see our animal nature as somehow bad, because it does not fit our current mode of living, or to think that civilization must lead to improvement. A primitive ape may strike you dead with its weapon, because it thinks you look strange and frighteningly different. But only a civilized human under the control of its culture, would amass food and supplies, so that it could march hundreds of miles, to commit genocide on people it had never seen, because its culture told it, they were frightening and different, whether they were or not.

Natural vanilla pods in my ice cream please, coffee is not bad either.

I think humans are at their core, very selfish. A baby's favorite word is "MINE".
Some folks never grow out of that behavior.

The Internet has given a voice to people who previously never had a voice, so it’s easy to believe the humankind we now have is a failure. It’s what conservatives have always believed.

We have developed to survive. Good or bad doesn’t work into the equation. We are tribally self serving. Always have been, always will be.

I think all folks (with a small percentage of exceptions) are capable of both good and evil.
I think it is hard to tell overall which happens more than the other . . .

When I hear claims "People are basically good", I ask, if so, "why do we have government".
We (all societies/cultures) have government, because the alternative is anarchy.

What is good or bad? I lean toward moral relativism so judgment depends on your culture (the answer is again hidden in the question). While I'm not fond of Hillary, I do believe it takes a village, meaning people do, generally, look out for one another, or understand that they should. Empathy seems to be universal among vertebrates, based on what I've seen. Is empathy good?

I think we have the power to be a good person, surround ourselves with good people and do our best to elect good (selfless) people as our community leaders, but we also need to employ our skeptical nature so not to believe the selfish and greedy from hoodwinking us.

I enjoy eating ice cream more with nutty people than serious ones, if we're taking a poll.

One of the best peices of advice ever given to me was from my journalism professor
"Never confuse people with The people ". People can be good or bad but are mostly indifferent, THE People are invariably a dangerous brainless mass following only their most base instincts with barely a brain cell between them.

I seem to be the only nut lover in this post. It's interesting to me that all of the posters think humans are more bad than good yet I think the people posting this are pretty nice folks.

Nuts are really good on ice cream.

The rule of law is there for a reason... lots of selfish, uncivilized people out there. But, the good people of this world are really really good, so I try to focus on them more.

Nothing ruins soft, creamy, cold deliciousness like a small, hard, uncomplimentary nut!

Nuts in ice cream is garbage. There are several reasons for this in my estimation. Fat = flavor. Cold reduces your short l ability to enjoy the flavor from fat. Cold nuts < warm nuts. Nuts are also better crunchy and sitting in ice cream reduces crunch. My mom makes butter salt roasted pecans and sprinkles them on top of ice cream and they're fuckin' killer.

On to the main, but far less important point. People (all living things, actually) are selfish as fuck. It's been bred into them for millions of years. "Good" and "bad" are relative and generally not valuable to label and discuss. The betterment of mankind argument is tenuous as well. When the sea levels rise 30' and people are starving, migrating, and dying of diseases and natural disasters like a motherfucker, tell me how much better off we are because there were more humans than dogs...