Flippanarchy

If anything, evil at scale tends to come from an absence of feeling for others instead of an impulse. A desire to validate that we’re better than others married to a missing regard for others.

• If you have a choice between bettering something you care for (yourself) and something you’re apathetic toward, what wins?
• Ethnic cleansing is everyday people being coached to apply this mindset selectively to a neighbor.
• Sociopaths don’t need the coaching and everyone else is a candidate for the cleansing. The people who they keep around are there to enrich their wallet or their ego.

True “evil” tends to occur when such people gather together and seek attention and distinction amongst themselves. The irrational pursuit of decadence leads to the decadence itself becoming enshrined as a system of measurement. Even serial killers aren’t likely to kill for killing’s sake. It’s not the moment of the kill that keeps them coming back; it’s the sense of superiority that comes from repeating the deed and not being caught.

Outliers exist, naturally. Sadism is a thing, much like masochism. Crimes of passion are self-describing, and some are more prone to volatile emotions than others. But when I view the problem at scale, I see people who 1) consider themselves the main character, 2) break things around them to ensure the main character wins, and 3) don’t feel anything particularly strong in the process unless they’re losing or “failing”.