• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

No Honour Among Thieves

Michael McMahon

DP Veteran
Joined
Apr 6, 2019
Messages
2,390
Reaction score
121
Location
Ireland
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Centrist
I think there's a small degree of indirect justice in that evil people sometimes attack other evil people. When we discuss the good versus evil debate we often forget there's an evil versus evil fight going on too. For instance in the ancient world the evil barbarians inflicted casualties on the sinister Romans. Even though many get away with their crimes, what goes around often comes around.
 
I think there's a small degree of indirect justice in that evil people sometimes attack other evil people....
There's justice everywhere, in everything, Michael. In a drop of rain. In the death of a sun.
Welcome to the forum.
 
I think there's a small degree of indirect justice in that evil people sometimes attack other evil people. When we discuss the good versus evil debate we often forget there's an evil versus evil fight going on too. For instance in the ancient world the evil barbarians inflicted casualties on the sinister Romans. Even though many get away with their crimes, what goes around often comes around.

Your OP reminds me of algebra class: When bad things (take negative number) happen to bad people (and add it to another negative number) the result is a good thing (equals a positive).
 
I think there's a small degree of indirect justice in that evil people sometimes attack other evil people. When we discuss the good versus evil debate we often forget there's an evil versus evil fight going on too. For instance in the ancient world the evil barbarians inflicted casualties on the sinister Romans. Even though many get away with their crimes, what goes around often comes around.

evil is self refuting

good is self developing

hate will ultimately hate even itself. which cancels itself out

love will also love itself, which just concentrates and increases itself

hate eventually leads to love, and love leads to more love

as demonstrated from 3:00 - 3:25 in this song:

F**k Everything (Jon Lajoie) - YouTube
 
Last edited:
“Lose the battle but win the war: to not achieve a minor victory but at the same time succeed in achieving something much more important.”
-Dictionary

We’re all finite in time. Consequently we’re incapable of seeing the true casualty ratio between good and evil over an eternal length of time. Evil people might win in the short-term but not the long-term. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about evil people who were attacked by similarly evil people. It’s not about revenge or schadenfreude! I’m simply making the point that evil on the whole can’t truly be said to have won against generally good people seeing as evil itself is internally divided. So we don’t necessarily even need to rely on karma in this life or hell in the afterlife to overcome the problem of evil. Good people don’t attack other good individuals. Therefore mathematical probability dictates that collectively there’ll always be more casualties on the evil side as they have an extra category of evil vs evil victims. Wicked individuals might escape punishment but we’re all sadly mortal so they too will eventually succumb to the pain of death by natural causes.
 
“Creatures can use freedom for good or evil; evil results from improper creaturely use of freedom. The free will defense solution to the problem of evil provides a basis for claiming that creatures, not God, are culpable for the genuine evil that occurs.”

People need to be functionally free or flexible in order to simply move, perceive objects and to set their long-term goals. So maybe the possibility of evil is an inevitable consequence of the way we can improvise and adapt to the changing environment. It would be like the way thievery is a warped distortion of the otherwise understandable desire to get rewards without wasting time or overexertion and with less effort. So in some respects perhaps the “Universe” wouldn’t be able to remove the thoughts of committing evil by some sinister people even if “it” tried to remove their free will by altering their brain. Free will may not only be required for just self-fulfilment or spiritual objectives. It might be needed for mundane short-term acts like walking where we need to feel and balance the different forces on our legs.

“Not only is fluid motion difficult to have with motors and gears, but the number of legs/pivots touching the ground also has a lot to do with how the robot will function.
When it comes to robots that stand up on a certain number of legs, it is much more common for the robot to come tumbling down to the ground than to be able to maintain balance.”



“Evil as the absence of good and human responsibility. God did not create evil. Human beings were created good, with a good will. Evil comes from disordered/misdirected love.”

That argument is a nice spiritual metaphor. Although I’m unsure if it could be translated to materialistic logic. For example, it’s a bit like inverting the force of heat and saying instead that heat is an absence of cold where coldness is the active force. Even though it’s somewhat circular, it’s true that technically no one is forced to do evil and it’s possible that absolutely everyone freely chooses to do good. That would nevertheless be impossibly unlikely so the “Universe” or whatever must have had the foresight to predict that many people would commit evil actions.



“The butterfly effect is the idea that small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon.
Of course, a single act like the butterfly flapping its wings cannot cause a typhoon. Small events can, however, serve as catalysts that act on starting conditions.”

If people have free will, then the medium through which they interact (namely the physical world) would also probably have to be a bit chaotic or uncertain. Natural disasters might be a passive result of the inner chaos and intrinsic randomness of the physical world.
 
Evil people might win in the short-term but not the long-term.
I wouldn't be so sure, entropy is the rule not the exception.

I’m simply making the point that evil on the whole can’t truly be said to have won against generally good people seeing as evil itself is internally divided. So we don’t necessarily even need to rely on karma in this life or hell in the afterlife to overcome the problem of evil. Good people don’t attack other good individuals. Therefore mathematical probability dictates that collectively there’ll always be more casualties on the evil side as they have an extra category of evil vs evil victims.
Victim? Who among us is so innocent as to claim the totality of consequences of their choices isn't suffering and tragedy? I agree, good people don’t attack other good individuals, but circumstances themselves can be tragic. I can't see how that would make the universe evil. Circumstances don't have intent, tragedy isn't personal.

So maybe the possibility of evil is an inevitable consequence of the way we can improvise and adapt to the changing environment. It would be like the way thievery is a warped distortion of the otherwise understandable desire to get rewards without wasting time or overexertion and with less effort.
If you spends time with people in great pain. It's hard to miss the greatest sources of pain come from the fear one can not handle more. This resistance being the true source of meaningful anguish. Let go and pain becomes rather meaningless, temporary and momentary. I think it is the same with 'hard choices' where our fears of being unable to handle the consequences are the sources of our greatest folly.

Even though it’s somewhat circular, it’s true that technically no one is forced to do evil and it’s possible that absolutely everyone freely chooses to do good. That would nevertheless be impossibly unlikely so the “Universe” or whatever must have had the foresight to predict that many people would commit evil actions.
When we spend enough time listening, we notice despite being born in a way where our perspectives can only include everything but ourselves, our number one topic remains the self we can not see. Our judgements of evil coming from recognizing in others a reflection of evil within. I don't think the actual universe cares if we commit evil or not. Only we do. These judgements feedback to guide us on the path out of hell, which is the inevitable consequences of these evil choices manifesting in sum.
 
I don't think the actual universe cares if we commit evil or not. Only we do.
It might be true that the physical universe doesn’t care if we commit evil but of course we’re still part of the universe and we certainly care about ourselves! So that means there’s a small bit of the universe at least that’s in some way caring even if that sounds self-referential. So the more we care about each other the more the universe cares about us.


These judgements feedback to guide us on the path out of hell, which is the inevitable consequences of these evil choices manifesting in sum.
Thankfully most people don’t come across pure evil in their own lives even though we can hear about it in the news. It can be difficult then to fully appreciate the severity of the problem. But we’ve all come across slightly mean people and notice how rude people will be often rude to each other. We certainly don’t need hell to deal with these minor incidents! I suppose the same argument could be made for much more evil crimes even though it’s on too large of a scale for us to fully understand it.
 
hate eventually leads to love
While pain can sometimes make us stronger or more resilient, evil actions will always be overpowering and much more harmful. But if there’s any consolation at all to be found from encountering evil, perhaps it’s that it can instil in us to be nothing like those bad individuals. So the more despicable we find a certain crime, the more it can motivate us to live virtuous lives by contrast.
 
Misotheism: “A stance of hatred towards, or rebellion against, a God or the gods.”

No one can hurt a hypothetical God entity directly as its invisible. So if an evil person still believed in the existence of God but wanted to attack that being out of nihilism then they’d be unable to do so. So if someone who isn’t actually atheist but nonetheless hated the “universe creator” then they might resort to attacking fellow individuals instead. So maybe the act of scapegoating might sometimes be caused by versions of misotheism rather than only their hatred of the victim.
 
“Creatures can use freedom for good or evil; evil results from improper creaturely use of freedom. The free will defense solution to the problem of evil provides a basis for claiming that creatures, not God, are culpable for the genuine evil that occurs.”

People need to be functionally free or flexible in order to simply move, perceive objects and to set their long-term goals. So maybe the possibility of evil is an inevitable consequence of the way we can improvise and adapt to the changing environment. It would be like the way thievery is a warped distortion of the otherwise understandable desire to get rewards without wasting time or overexertion and with less effort. So in some respects perhaps the “Universe” wouldn’t be able to remove the thoughts of committing evil by some sinister people even if “it” tried to remove their free will by altering their brain. Free will may not only be required for just self-fulfilment or spiritual objectives. It might be needed for mundane short-term acts like walking where we need to feel and balance the different forces on our legs.

“Not only is fluid motion difficult to have with motors and gears, but the number of legs/pivots touching the ground also has a lot to do with how the robot will function.
When it comes to robots that stand up on a certain number of legs, it is much more common for the robot to come tumbling down to the ground than to be able to maintain balance.”



“Evil as the absence of good and human responsibility. God did not create evil. Human beings were created good, with a good will. Evil comes from disordered/misdirected love.”

That argument is a nice spiritual metaphor. Although I’m unsure if it could be translated to materialistic logic. For example, it’s a bit like inverting the force of heat and saying instead that heat is an absence of cold where coldness is the active force. Even though it’s somewhat circular, it’s true that technically no one is forced to do evil and it’s possible that absolutely everyone freely chooses to do good. That would nevertheless be impossibly unlikely so the “Universe” or whatever must have had the foresight to predict that many people would commit evil actions.



“The butterfly effect is the idea that small things can have non-linear impacts on a complex system. The concept is imagined with a butterfly flapping its wings and causing a typhoon.
Of course, a single act like the butterfly flapping its wings cannot cause a typhoon. Small events can, however, serve as catalysts that act on starting conditions.”

If people have free will, then the medium through which they interact (namely the physical world) would also probably have to be a bit chaotic or uncertain. Natural disasters might be a passive result of the inner chaos and intrinsic randomness of the physical world.

The robot dance scene has moved on. Skynet is imminent!

 
The Romans and Barbarians were evil?
If it was down to pure chance then you’d expect 50% of the world’s population to choose good and the remaining 50% to side with evil. Ideally there’d be 0% evil. It does sound pessimistic that half of the world isn’t evil anyway and most are virtuous. Perhaps that shows that there’s some trace of common good that’s hardwired into us.
 
If it was down to pure chance then you’d expect 50% of the world’s population to choose good and the remaining 50% to side with evil. Ideally there’d be 0% evil. It does sound pessimistic that half of the world isn’t evil anyway and most are virtuous. Perhaps that shows that there’s some trace of common good that’s hardwired into us.

I tend not to view peoples in such a strictly dualistic sense. The Romans and Barbarians were people of their times and collectively no better or worse than any other contemporaneous civilisation.
 
One more approach might be relating evil to the separation of physical and mental events. Our emotions have a neurological basis even though we’re still not fully sure how it works. So maybe it’s physically easier for the brain to feel pain than happiness. Much of our biological systems are controlled involuntarily. Yet it’s harder to wire a car for automatic steering than manual. Therefore if we were to be fully attuned to our stomach then for instance we’d be overwhelmed or stressed and feel a tummy bug. It’s psychologically easier to be rich but it’s physically harder because it requires more resources and money. It’s collectively easier for everyone to be kind and cooperative though it’s individually simplest to be selfish. Biologically speaking it’s easier for the heart to stop beating than it is to keep beating and stay alive. Dying is physically straightforward but psychologically terrifying. Maybe this discrepancy between the mind and body would make a utopia without evil quite difficult for this universe of ours.
 
I think there's a small degree of indirect justice in that evil people sometimes attack other evil people. When we discuss the good versus evil debate we often forget there's an evil versus evil fight going on too. For instance in the ancient world the evil barbarians inflicted casualties on the sinister Romans. Even though many get away with their crimes, what goes around often comes around.

As Hobbes noted, the condition of mankind is "a war of everyone against everyone".

Your OP reminds me of algebra class: When bad things (take negative number) happen to bad people (and add it to another negative number) the result is a good thing (equals a positive).

Well, expect when that a competition between two bad people will result in a bad person losing and a bad person winning. That is, at best, a wash. In the real world it id a net negative since the winner often walks away with more power than the two had independently. Hundreds of small time evil people working against one another do less harm than a single person monopolizing the power of one hundred small time criminals can.
 
That is, at best, a wash. In the real world it id a net negative since the winner often walks away with more power than the two had independently.
I agree with you that some evil people can escape punishment and “win” or grow stronger. Although I don’t think they’ll always be stronger than both combined. For example a conquering army will always suffer some casualties even if they defeat their opponents and take their land.


Hundreds of small time evil people working against one another do less harm than a single person monopolizing the power of one hundred small time criminals can.
True; but powerful evil people will eventually encounter other potent adversaries their own size even if they can take out the small-time competition.
 
You can't have evil without goodness, or goodness without evil. They define each other.
 
Maybe we can have neutrality without being either good or evil!
 
Our judgements of evil coming from recognizing in others a reflection of evil within.
Evil actions are irrational from most people’s perspective. Hence it can sometimes be difficult to rationally understand the motives of those who commit evil. We can try to recognise the general themes that make individuals want to commit evil like greed, selfishness and indifference towards others. The way aggression is often unexpected can make it harder to objectively assess how much it reflects a person’s character coming from “within” or whether it was a temporary mishap.
 
"In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis offers a multi-pronged Christian explanation for the suffering in the world. Lewis first develops a free will theodicy, according to which much of the suffering in our world is a by-product of human free will. To account for the remaining suffering (caused by, for instance, disease and natural disasters), Lewis develops a version of the soul-making theodicy, according to which some of the suffering in the world is permitted by God as part of a divine project of improving the moral character of human beings."
- Edinburgh University Press

Evil is always harmful towards the individual victim. It's possible that mild harm might inadvertently lead the victim to develop positive defensive and resilient traits. Although it's far more likely that aggressive incidents will overall do far more damage than good and any residual silver linings would be purely accidental from the perspective of the perpetrator. Besides, any beneficial increase in psychological strength would only occur in the long-term after a period of intense stress in the short and medium term. From a religious perspective someone could make the argument that seeing evil on the news fosters our empathy and serves as a reminder that we are vulnerable, imperfect human beings that rely on each other for support. Evil underscores our metaphysical disconnection to the violent individual and in doing so it forces us to avoid solipsism and to appreciate others in a humble, spiritual way. Hearing about evil incidents and the logical conclusions of psychopathic ways of thinking deters us from ever being tempted to commit evil ourselves.
 

(Marvin is shot - Pulp Fiction)

I didn't watch the full movie but I found some of the scenes fun and sarcastic. There's dark humour in the way John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson's characters exude such an extremely stoic and self-deprecating attitude which seems far too exaggerated to be possible in real life. Yet on second thought there probably are evil characters around the world with a similarly violent, indifferent, mocking and absurdist attitude to life. There's much talk these days about the dangers of toxic hyper-masculinity even though it's commonly agreed that some masculine qualities and ideals can be very virtuous. It's termed brave when good people sacrifice their life despite the fact that evil people with an equivalent amount of fearlessness who sacrifice their lives in the name of evil are never called brave. That's because our concept of bravery requires deference to the greater good. It's not simply about fearlessness in isolation but rather its existence in the context of other additional values like humility and mercy. It's probably much easier for evil people to be fearless compared to good people because they might find violence enjoyable in a sadistic and selfish manner. Contrastingly the emphasis for good people when it comes to violence is pure defensiveness. Therefore evil people may have more emotional incentives on the offensive than good people do on the defence. This is exacerbated in how evil can be a downward spiral where years and years of aggression in a sinister person will only cause progressively more megalomania. So while fearlessness can indeed be very masculine, perhaps we nonetheless shouldn't judge masculinity solely in terms this trait.


"Only by looking honestly at the causes of male violence can we hope to decrease the rate of violent crime in the community."
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/r...n/news-story/96d9ad08d8bcca2db1e00c4e61e67386
 

Still D.R.E.

I'm not sure what the ethics are of listening to songs that sexualise women. Would I be offended by a song that objectified men? I don't think I would but I suppose that might be an unfair question since there's a societal power imbalance between men and women. It might be slightly boastful to like these songs but perhaps we could justify it in terms of the lesser of two evils: if I there was ever a future risk of me being caught up in a gang war than I might need to listen to such songs beforehand to give me the necessary confidence! Although if that was all there was to it then I've already had more than enough pump-up songs to scare away all possible adversaries!
 
“In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was married to King Menelaus of Sparta… The usual tradition is that after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to Paris in the Judgement of Paris, she was seduced by him and carried off to Troy. This resulted in the Trojan War when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her.”

How culpable is she for all of the deaths? Did she put all of the soldiers all in a state of supernatural possession!? Even if men have historically caused more violence, how blameworthy are the queens they fought for?
 
There've been both evil and good societies through-out history and so evil is compatible with our genetics to some extent. Thankfully there are plenty of evolutionary arguments to favour morality like group evolution and reciprocity. Excluding spiritual factors there might be an argument that we're genetically biased to be slightly good even if it's not an overriding one. For example a society of serial killers isn't compatible with our genetics simply because the society would wipe itself out through internal criminality. Soldiers in evil armies still have to co-operate with each other in order to carry out collective evil and beat massive numbers of enemy defenders. This is a somewhat different mindset to a lone murderous criminal who never has to conspire with others. Therefore even an evil society requires some degree of camaraderie. This might mean that even a psychopathic criminal has to feel a trace amount of guilt for their crimes owing to their genetics even though they're able to conceal it and withstand it. I watched an unintentionally amusing interview on the internet with an American retired Mafia boss named Michael Franzese. If you didn't read the title of the video then you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was just about a right-leaning business owner who merely had a few rough edges when it came to tax. The discussion about his rags-to-riches story in the "gas" business would be reminiscent of documentaries on Richard Branson and the like. We're informed that he was a loyal family man and a born-again Christian who deplores his past hedonism. There were a few insinuations in the early stages about thuggery but the details are politely left out to spare the viewers the stress! I think the interviewer was slightly obsequious but I suppose he wouldn't want to offend the wrong people! It's only at the end of the video that we're informed there were perhaps a few peripheral murders that we don't need to know about! Anyway what caught my attention was the way he said he was always reluctant to consent to someone's death because one day it might be him that the leaders were planning to kill. I don't think a criminal's hesitation counts as a mitigating factor but at the very least it's still a sign that even violent people need to know their limits. They can't win a war against everyone and eventually they might be on the receiving end of it.

'(7:10) You know, the life is very violent, and if you're part of that life, you're part of the violence and there's no escape... (31:00) Cause guys that shoot off their mouth and wanted to be tough guys, they're all gone. You don't keep somebody that around when you got to worry about somebody doing to you, you let them go, you know, get rid of them, and that's what happened... (37:36) I saw two types of guys in that life. There were guys there that I would call them stone killers, they enjoyed it. "Hey, give me the contract, "I'm ready to go, I love it, and I'll do it." And they did it, they did their job. You know, for me, when I was asked to order to do something it made me uncomfortable. And don't get me wrong, I never let anybody see that, and, you know, I did what I had to do and, and did it. And in my case it was kinda like stepping outside of myself, doing what I had to do and getting right back because I wasn't gonna let anybody talk about me, and I was gonna make sure I did what I was told to do, follow the orders. But I think there really was those two type of guys, those two types of personalities. And I'll tell you this, the guys that were ready to kill, they don't last. They don't last because people say, "I'm not gonna worry about this guy, he's too quick with the trigger." You know, one thing that I learned, if you're a captain in that family, and wanna (sic) clear this up too, murder was taken very seriously in that life, we weren't random killers. We didn't do drive-by shootings. We weren't allowed to do that stuff. We didn't do it. Any murder in that life had to be sanctioned by the boss. That was it, it had to be sanctioned by the boss. There was discussion about it, some people were for it, some people were against it, and then a ruling was made. And, you know, I always thought about this, I said, "Look, this life was like a wheel, it turns around, you know. One day if I'm sitting there, you know, giving a vote, deciding the fate of somebody, I wannabe hesitant". I'm not gonna be the one to say right away, Let's do this. Or let's do that, or, you know, put a death warrant on this guy, because it might be me sitting there one day. I mean, it might be me that they're deciding upon one day, and I wanna be known to be the guy that said, let's really discuss this. Let's wait. Let's see. And, you know, I think in the end that's served me well.'
- Transcript from a Soft White Underbelly interview and portrait of Michael Franzese.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom