Why Being Evil is Bad

[Smart Turtle]

When a person commits a malicious or dishonest act, they are introducing a distortion, entropy, a lie, or an exploitation, into the structure of reality. Because human systems, relationships, and the human mind are highly resilient, they do not collapse instantly. They bend to absorb the distortion.

This is why people think they have gotten away with it in the short term.

The very mind you would use to enjoy your ill-gotten gains is the mind that has been degraded, and structurally damaged by the act of twisting reality in the first place.

Pablo Escobar​

Escobar twisted reality through extreme violence, bombing civilian airplanes, assassinating politicians, and bribing entire institutions. Under his rule of "plata o plomo" (silver or lead), the entire nation of Colombia "bent" out of sheer terror. He was so powerful that he even built his own luxury prison, La Catedral, where he lived like a king while still running his empire. He appeared untouchable.

The system eventually reached its limit. The Colombian government, backed by international forces, turned the hunt for Escobar into an relentless war. His wealth became useless as his safe houses were systematically raided and his allies were killed.

Escobar spent his final year on the run, terrified, isolated, and deeply paranoid. Despite having billions of dollars, he was reduced to hiding in cold, cramped safe houses, unable to step outside. In one famous account, while hiding in the mountains, he had to burn $2 million in cash just to keep his freezing daughter warm because they could not risk leaving to buy food or blankets. In 1993, the hunt ended on a muddy rooftop in Medellín. The billionaire drug lord was gunned down, barefoot, dirty, and utterly alone. The mind he used to build an empire had been degraded to that of a hunted, cornered animal.

 

[Crypt Kicker]

The mind he used to build an empire had been degraded to that of a hunted, cornered animal.

You nearly got me to sympathize with a murderous, drug peddling, pimping, human trafficking spic.
They should have let Escobar know they knew where he was just to prolong his paranoid suffering for a few years longer before, I wonder how long it would have taken for him to just say fuck it and kill himself.
Like shine a sniper laser in front of him just to let him know he's been seen, but don't kill him, only let him know they could. I think that would be hell for a guy like that.

 

[Moon Conner Josh]

OP should have explained this to Adam and Eve.

 

[Wilson The Ball]

Wash your penis, bucko

 

[Smart Turtle]

Wash your penis, bucko

Tom Hanks is my favorite celebrity.

 

[Pierre D'Olnique]

>being evil is bad
source?

 

[Tablet County]

Pretentious nonsense that doesn't make any sense if you think about it for more than ten seconds? Just another day in Deep Thoughts.

 

[Disastrously Dumb]

Some would argue that Gary Plauche's actions was Evil
since he took a life.

But I do believe "Evil" can be subjective and open to interpretation on the actions taken.

What Truly is evil in my opinion, is extending human rights to child predators and predators in general
to treat them as people after they commit acts that are monstrous, is the greatest injustice. and a Mockery on terms of "Good" and "Evil"

 

[The Evil Midnight Bomber]

You're so right OP. There totally isn't an endless list of evil fucks that died peacefully in their own home feeling no remorse for their actions whatsoever. Never happens.

 

[Breadbassket]

Counterpoint:
How many terrible monarchs and politicians died of old age without their evil ever "catching up" to them?

 

[Tablet County]

You're so right OP. There totally isn't an endless list of evil fucks that died peacefully in their own home feeling no remorse for their actions whatsoever. Never happens.

Counterpoint:
How many terrible monarchs and politicians died of old age without their evil ever "catching up" to them?

The whole reason the idea of supernatural justice exists is because people die getting away with it, all the time, and people bridle at how unfair it all is.
"Oh, but the guilt must weigh down upon them!" Yeah I'm sure Weinstein is really beating himself up over the girls he fucked about with in his gold-plated mcmansion. The backlash these niggers get isn't "reality snapping back into place", it's people taking matters into their own hands when the law or supernatural powers fail them.

 

[Smart Turtle]

Pretentious nonsesne that doesn't make any sense if you think about it for more than ten seconds? Just another day in Deep Thoughts.

The irony that you are a great example of why being evil is a terrible idea; just look at yourself, despicable, suicidal, and a negative creature.

 

[Hellwalker]

Being evil is "bad", you say...

 

[Tablet County]

The irony that you are a great example of why being evil is a terrible idea; just look at yourself, despicable, suicidal, and a negative creature.

You're extrapolating this from literally nothing. Negative I can accept being misconstrued as, but you have nothing to suggest I am either suicidal or morally bankrupt. I'm actually a supremely optimistic, romantic, borderline bleeding-heart faggot, I'm just not taken in by pretentious pseudointellectual nonsense.

TL;DR, niggerfaggot.

 

[Smart Turtle]

Negative I can accept being misconstrued as,

Maybe you are negative for a reason.

 

[Tablet County]

Maybe you are negative for a reason.

What's the reason, great sage? I'm curious.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

OP, I think there's a real point buried in what you said, but it gets weakened by this "reality snaps back" framing
Like, evil is not bad because the universe guarantees some cinematic payback. That mechanism does not exist. Plenty of murderers, rulers, politicians, informers, torturers, and parasites die old, comfortable, and with a 100% conviction that what they did was justified. The fact that people often get away with evil is one of the reason humans invent supernatural justice in the first place, as @Tablet County correctly pointed out.
The stronger point is different than the one you made. Evil is bad because it is action against life, reason, and peaceful human coexistence.
Like, fraud, coercion, murder, intimidation, these things are not wrong "because the perpetrator always ends up personally miserable". Their wrongness comes from substituting force and evasion for production, truth, consent, and reality-oriented action.
Now, thankfully not all is bleak, there can be internal consequences. A person who lives by lies and domination can distort his own mind and character. However, that is not the same thing as justice, and it is not guaranteed to show up as visible suffering. Sometimes the evildoer pays, sometimes his victims pay. Sometimes, an entire society pays while the perpetrator dies peacefully in his sleep.

Pablo Escobar

is an easy case because nobody respectable has to defend him.
The harder test is whether the same standard is applied consistently. If a cartel is evil because it rules through threats, violence, bribery, territorial control, and forced extraction, then the analysis cannot stop at illegal cartels.

 

[Smart Turtle]

OP, I think there's a real point buried in what you said, but it gets weakened by this "reality snaps back" framing
Like, evil is not bad because the universe guarantees some cinematic payback. That mechanism does not exist. Plenty of murderers, rulers, politicians, informers, torturers, and parasites die old, comfortable, and with a 100% conviction that what they did was justified. The fact that people often get away with evil is one of the reason humans invent supernatural justice in the first place, as @Tablet County correctly pointed out.
The stronger point is different than the one you made. Evil is bad because it is action against life, reason, and peaceful human coexistence.
Like, fraud, coercion, murder, intimidation, these things are not wrong "because the perpetrator always ends up personally miserable". Their wrongness comes from substituting force and evasion for production, truth, consent, and reality-oriented action.
Now, thankfully not all is bleak, there can be internal consequences. A person who lives by lies and domination can distort his own mind and character. However, that is not the same thing as justice, and it is not guaranteed to show up as visible suffering. Sometimes the evildoer pays, sometimes his victims pay. Sometimes, an entire society pays while the perpetrator dies peacefully in his sleep.


is an easy case because nobody respectable has to defend him.
The harder test is whether the same standard is applied consistently. If a cartel is evil because it rules through threats, violence, bribery, territorial control, and forced extraction, then the analysis cannot stop at illegal cartels.

You misunderstood my point entirely. Being evil will make your life bad but doesn't guarantee that you will get cancer or AIDS before you die for being evil. Maybe you were about to marry the most beautiful woman, but your being evil clearly stopped that. Maybe you were about to get very rich, but the boss sensed your negativity and hated you for it. The concept that you might die being evil and not get punished for it is as ridiculous as people defending being evil in this thread and attacking divine justice. I have never seen someone objectively evil or a pedophile living his "best life", they always get fucked for it one way or another, it's a shame that you can't see that.

The story of Abel and Cain shows that even after Cain killed his brother, God did not immediately kill him, but instead condemned him to a much harder life. If you look around, you’ll often notice that people who are deeply negative or cruel tend to carry heavier struggles and inner turmoil than others

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

You misunderstood my point entirely.

I don't think I misunderstood you. I explicitly granted that evil can damage a person's mind, character, relationships, and long-term ability to deal with reality.
What I denied is the stronger claim that evil reliably makes the evildoer's life bad in some guaranteed personal sense.

Maybe you were about to marry the most beautiful woman, but your being evil clearly stopped that. Maybe you were about to get very rich, but the boss sensed your negativity and hated you for it.

These things are not a mechanism. That's just making up a hypothetical that can't be verified or falsified. Like, if an evil man becomes rich and powerful and respected and dies peacefully, you can always point your finger and say he secretly lost some even better life that he otherwise would have had. The claim is simply impossible to test.
The real causal point is narrower and stronger. If you live by lies, you can damage your ability to think honestly. If you rule by fear, you create enemies. If you use force and fraud, you invite retaliation and paranoia. If you become dependent on predation, you deform your character. All of those things are real and there's plenty of proof.
However, that still leaves open the central issue, i.e. that consequences are not distributed in any morally tidy way. The damage that evil causes often falls outward rather than inward, and there is no rule that the perpetrator bears the largest share of it.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

Whenever I do the right thing, it bites me in the ass because no one else is doing the right thing. I do not even receive plaudits for doing the right thing. Instead, I get ridiculed for being naive. Thus, the logical conclusion is to NOT do the right thing.