Comment on What is in for the antivax in a government?

• givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  They absolutely think they are doing good…

  Pretty unanimously, the most evil people to walk the planet all legitimately believe they’re the good guys.

  Almost no one sees themselves as a villain, that’s just how the human brain is wired.

  People not understanding this, is why evil shit keeps fucking happening.

  If you just keep writing them off as “villains” doing evil for the sake of evil, we’ll never learn how to stop it. That literally why they keep coming back.

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  • lovely_reader@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    I broadly agree but there’s not necessarily anything altruistic about the “good” that they’re doing—they’ve just found a way to justify what they want/decide to do, same as everyone. They don’t have to believe it’s good for people or the world. As long as they can find a reason why those harms don’t matter, or convince themselves that those people/the world would’ve been fucked regardless, or figure at least they’re not doing [insert some other scenario they can imagine], they can live with themselves. And they can focus on who it is good for (their kids perhaps, and all the people in their lives who are undoubtedly pressuring them to abuse their power).

    I just wanted to speak up for that nuance, because to me “they think they’re doing good” implies that they value the ideals of doing actual good…and I don’t think there’s necessarily true.

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  • snooggums@piefed.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Pretty unanimously, the most evil people to walk the planet all legitimately believe they're the good guys.

    Nah, the majority of evil people are doing stuff that benefits them personally, not for some misguided altruistic purpose that makes for good villains in fiction. Trump, Putin, and all of the rest sre just looking out for themselves and sometimes their families/contacts at the expense of everyone else.

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    • CannonFodder@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Yes, but they honestly believe that’s the right thing to do. Or at least they’ve convinced themselves that it’s excusable. They believe they have a right to do things for themselves at the expense of others. That’s why they won’t ever have remorse. It takes more intelligence to empathize with others; they don’t have that. It’s actually kinda sad.
      People who wig out and do what they know is evil are very distraught, and often suicidal.

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      • snooggums@piefed.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        None of that describes someone who thinks they are 'one of the good guys'.

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