The evilest person who committed the most horrendous deeds, propagated the worst ideas, or was responsible for other moustache-twirling affairs.
Anyone who is currently alive does not count.
The evilest person who committed the most horrendous deeds, propagated the worst ideas, or was responsible for other moustache-twirling affairs.
Anyone who is currently alive does not count.
I think that where we are today, it’s more important than ever to really recognise that there is absolutely no “evilest” person. And moreso, almost all of them genuinely believed they were being a force for good.
The main reason for there being no “evilest” is because there are not just tens, or hundreds, but thousands of people who have committed horrific atrocities which even as individual acts would be in contention for the evilest.
Just within the Holocaust, you have so many individuals perpetrating such evil. The croatian fascist groups always stick out in my memory for the raw personal brutality.
However, there are so many comparable situations throughout history that we know very little about. Sacking of cities, mass rapes, Jeffrey fucking epstein, what’s been happening in Sudan, what happened in Ethiopia a few years ago, the Holocaust, the Mongols, the ottomans, the British empire, south American dictators, the Japanese empire, the russian empire, the soviet union, al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, the IRA, the Vikings, and on, and on, and on.
Yes, arguments can be made about how much more evil things are when they are organised etc. However, in my mind, organisation is just a tool that we have improved. We need to be hyper vigilant that anyone, at any time can end up being so radicalised that they are willing to perpetrate evil. Including ourselves. We are not really different from these evil humans.
I don’t believe that. Sociopathy is extremely common in those that achieve high levels of power. Most of them used and manipulated others credulity around things being forces for good to increase their own power. For such people getting what they want is their only real criteria for good.
I agree with your last statement though.
While that is true, I think that many of the most successful at building a following are true believers. Hitler is a pretty good example.
I think Mao or Pol Pot also started out quite idealistic and then we’re warped by power.
I suppose it’s very difficult to really say one way or the other, and I would argue that true evil is only possible when the intent is purely self serving.
Even with sociopathy, they may genuinely think they are doing good without feeling empathy for those they harm. However, it’s a very good point that many of those that rise are sociopaths or become sociopathic.
Got to agree with this. We’ve got the evil leaders, and then what about those immediately second to them supporting and enabling all those orders that wind up in mass death and harm?
I don’t think it’s possible to say it’s one person, there’s a huge support structure that makes their version of evil happen.
There’s a difference, now, though:
Humankind’s doing its “mitosis” thing.
Humankind is dividing-by-alignment.
That only happens 1x per world, ttbomk.
( after the original Industrial Revolution, the Roman Empire, then the “seedling” that that was, in our world eventually grew into a “sapling”, the official Industrial Revolutions-sequence…
then, as population reaches ecological-saturation & technology simultaneously reaches world-breaking power, ClimatePunctuation kicks-in…
etc
all eventually enforce The Great Filter.
& in that Great Filter, alignment polarizes.
Anti-Life polarization & With-Life polarization.
Every world of people-similar-to-our-kind would have to go through it, same as “puberty”, but for whole-species )
As the process progresses, the polarization is going to become more & more extreme.
So, until now we’ve been mixtures, every individual ( with few exceptions ), but … that’s going to be changing, until there’s zero mixture left, & everybody ( near the end of this century ) is absolutely-polarized, 1 way or the other.
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