So since nature and strangers do a whole lot of negative reinforcement

In a traditional world perhaps. In a digital world, not so much. You can drive somebody to suicide with online bullying and laugh about it with friends after the fact, knowing you got away with it.

Story time:

I remember when I was really young, I had no clue what 'racism' or even race was. I had a very multicultural background coming from Leicester (the most 'diverse' city in the UK with about 40% white people or something). My best friends were two different types of Indian and a black guy, and it just never occurred to me we were different in any particular way. I was quite literally race blind as a kid.

Then in middle school I had a different friend, a white one, who was clearly actively racist, definitely picking up from an extremely racist father. We'd walk around and he'd say really nasty racist things all over the school grounds pointing at all the non-whites.

I'd laugh my head off cause, y'know, sneaky insults are just giggly funny in a naughty way. He'd even shoulder-ram people walking by and the fact nobody did anything is what made me laugh. even that didn't click in my brain that he was doing it to brown skin only until long after we were friends.

In this story, I was only getting positive reinforcement from my scumbag friend, who himself was only really doing what his dad encouraged via positive reinforcement. Since nobody hit him back or told a teacher and got him punished, there was no negative reinforcement for me to understand the damage we were doing. If I was friends with him much longer than I was, I'd have certainly been influenced perhaps permanently.

I suppose the issue I'm trying to raise is, who is to say which reinforcement is correct? By including positive and negative, we at least have some boundaries on either side to bounce back and forth on, finding a balance somewhere in between. Focus too much on one or the other, and I reckon you get messed up kids.

I get that's not the extreme you were really talking about, it was just some extra food for thought I guess