“Yes, my dear, there is evil in this world.”
Every person who does evil, does not do so because he thinks he is evil, but because he thinks his actions are warranted – either via punishment, retribution, restitution, profit, or some version of ‘getting his or her fair share’ (which is the justification we make for most of our crimes.)
Even serial killers justify their actions. Mothers justify their criminal sons and daughters. Each of us justifies our indiscretions from the most petty to the most horrid by one excuse or another.
Was Mao Evil? Was Stalin? Was Mohammed? They are the greatest murderers in history – with the total murders of the communists at more than 100M and the total murders of the Muslims over 500M. Yet they are heroes to some, and in their minds, preventing an even worse bad (they were just wrong).
Humans are rational actors, and super predators – the most successful super predators on earth. We are gracious, moral, ethical, cooperative, criminal, unethical, immoral, and evil as we see fit.
YES I KNOW SOME EVIL PEOPLE
1) I grew up in a farm community fighting with a boy named Bobby Lee on a very regular basis, and the best I could do was pin him and exhaust him. He was dangerous. He grew up to be an arsonist, then a drug dealer, then a stalker, and a double-murderer. The police shot him dead. As any career policeman will tell you “you know by the age of seven who will turn out bad”. And it’s true.
2) I know a business man (actually a family) that knowingly engaged in Churning resulting in dozens of families losing everything they owned. (I assisted in his prosecution for racketeering).
3) I know a business man who forged (I turned him into the justice department) legal documents in order to collect money for elderly and their relatives, and keep it.
4) I know a business man who would use legal extortion, including the most egregious, which was buying a sliver of land next to a child care building, and filing for a permit for housing sexual predators, in order to force the child care company to purchase the land at multiples. (We obtained evidence and turned him into the IRS.)
5) We all know the (unnamed) fellow who just acquired a patent for a necessary medicine and raised the price dramatically. (He has been prosecuted)
6) I know a disproportionate number of lawyers and finance people who prey upon well intentioned honorable people in hardship situations. These people are evil (and they get away with it.) I could name them but it would do no good. (this includes a lawyer who fabricated testimony on behalf of his client in a divorce proceeding).
7) I know a series of venture capitalists that attempt to organize bad deals so that they can upend and take over a company for pennies, and either sell it or strip it of income. More often than not, this is the case.
8) The top merger and acquisitions law firm in the country regularly counseled my board on means by which to screw shareholders, and actively worked against the interests of shareholders in favor of a minority investor.
9 ) I know people in the ‘global warming’ movement who engage in misrepresentation of data in order to expand the bureaucracy, and create long term rent seeking jobs for themselves.
10) There are an absurd number of people in the IRS who perform such heinous crimes against ordinary citizens who make rational mistakes, and ruin them on a regular basis. I know one in particular that takes pleasure in it. She looks for opportunities to take our her envy on others.
11) I know a certain trial lawyer who only takes death penalty cases, and I can’t even bear know about the people he defends. If you meet any criminal with an IQ under 85, a combination of undesirable personality traits, (more than 3% of the population) and any sort of resentment they are not so much evil as nothing but evil in everything that they think, feel and do.
12) I know a certain famous economist that does nothing except try to destroy western civilization at every opportunity, out of pure hatred for it in every bone in his body.
That doesn’t even begin to touch it. Evil is everywhere. And the most evil people are the self righteous who desire something of others because they feel they are due it.
Now, I can’t tell you what most of these people have in common, because I would be banned for saying it – but all of them are very similar in one respect.
I hate to say this because I am a long term 1%’er, and I believe in creating wealth, and in my experience Small Business owners and the working class are most honest people. But the legal, financial, government employee, and political classes are about as corrupt and evil as any class of people who ever lived, and if we burned them all at the stake we would live in a far better world.
If only because everyone that followed after them would understand the consequences.
So yes, there is evil in this world.
https://www.quora.com/Have-you-met-anyone-truly-evil-What-makes-them-evil-according-to-you