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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1606 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 12, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I set a higher bar for categorical Evil than what any of those issues represent. Someone supporting mass migration aren't being cruel for the sake of cruelty (my definition of evil).

That's an extremely high bar. Excepting rare psychopaths, almost nobody is being cruel for the sake of cruelty. The Holy Inquisition burned heretics for their own good - after their body had been destroyed, the important part - the soul - would be cleansed and would have a chance for eternal life. Who wouldn't prefer a brief short-term pain to the eternal never-ending torment? Communists exterminated millions - to give happiness and prosperity to billions (or at least they thought so - it didn't work out that way..). Nazis had the same kind of idea - their list of "bad" people was based on genetics rather than class, but otherwise same structure. Very rarely somebody sets out to do evil by trying to do evil - they always are the heroes in their own story.

It's not a high bar. Far from 'extremely high'. Lots of sociopaths exist. Lots of unprovoked cruelty occurs in this world, both from the sociopaths and from many other people. It was not to 'punish badness' that Germans tortured Jews.

If you read the literature, most of people committing the atrocities - including the Nazi atrocities - are not psychopaths. They are pretty usual people. That's the whole "banality of evil" thing. Put in the right circumstances, with the right motivations and the right indoctrination, a real lot of people would commit atrocities - not because they derive perverse pleasure from causing suffering - in fact, they very well may not - but because they consider it necessary to achieve some beneficial ends, or simply because it's the easiest way to go. Nazis didn't happen because German population suddenly turned mentally ill. They happened because Nazis were successful in convincing part of the population in their narrative, and scared the rest of the population enough to go along. That's what makes it so scary - it's not some insane Joker or Hannibal Lecter that does all those things. It's just regular people, in suitable circumstances, with suitable mind disposition.

Just because someone thinks they are doing something for good doesn't mean it's their true motivation though. People who enjoy cruelty, find purges orderly and tell themselves they're helping could also be included in a definition of evil. This would cover e.g. a sadistic cop.

Just because someone thinks they are doing something for good doesn't mean it's their true motivation though.

We'd get into very deep weeds here. How do we know what is "true" motivation and what is self-delusion? We can't read minds. How do we know if the sadistic cop enjoys causing pain, or enjoys the righteousness of his anger agains the criminals (in his own view)? I don't think it is possible, and I don't think it matters too much. If you do evil, and think it's good, it's still evil. There could be a possibility of opening the eyes of the evildoer to the true nature of their deeds, and thus convincing them to stop, but this possibility is remote and theoretical. Most people would find a million of excuses rather than admit "I was doing evil".

I don't think it has to be all that deep. It's not like you require a truly Freudian and unfalsifiable notion of a subconscious to understand the idea of someone who has a false narrative that gives them a license do what their baser self really wants to do. Confronting the fallible bad guy with a truth about themselves that they can't handle but deep down know is true is a common part of thousands of thrillers.

As you say, we're deep in the weeds here though.

That's a rather lax definition, it lets off the hook every utopian mass-murdering sociopath.

Have there been mass-murdering sociopaths who did it out of utopian dreams, rather than those being fig leaves?

Hard to say without being able to read someone's mind, and you might as well ask the same question about mass migration supporters.

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