[eastof]

You are still falling for the evil genius trap. The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way, see Singer's drowning child. We're simply not wired to care as much about even large groups of people when they are not people we regularly interact with.

[justonceokay]

Where did the above commenter say “genius?”

Evil is boring because it is so usual. With the small power I’m given I choose not to recycle, I jaywalk, I say the “R” word in private conversation. If I were a line manager I would play favorites and skip mentorship opportunities if I were tired or busy. As a middle manager I might forget the names of some of my indirect reports and unwittingly pit teams against each other. As my power increases, the fallout of my human actions has larger and more “evil” sounding consequences.

Remember that 99.9% of people do not consider themselves to be the bad guy, yet more than 0.01% of people are bad guys. Almost no one identifies with evil, yet evil is a string that runs through every beating heart.

[colinb]

>Remember that 99.9% of people do not consider themselves to be the bad guy, yet more than 0.01% of people are bad guys. Almost no one identifies with evil, yet evil is a string that runs through every beating heart.

"estimate the prevalence rate of psychopathy in the general adult population at 4.5%." [0]

You do most of humanity a disservice by lumping them in with that cohort that may or may not identify themselves as evil (I have no idea) but are certainly capable of deliberately and with calculation behaving in ways that most of us would label with the "E" word.

Sometimes being judgmental is ok.

[0]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374040/

[da_chicken]

> Where did the above commenter say “genius?”

It's the transparent subtext. Like, blindingly transparent.

GGP's comment is talking about how CEOs are special or different than we are. That is, that they're not just evil, but that they're evil geniuses. It's just Great Man Theory with a Snidely Whiplash costume.

[globalnode]

whats the R word

[wallst07]

"Retarded"

"Mental Retardation" used to be a common term signed into law and documents but was removed in ~2010. Since then, it has become more of a slur than a description.

[wasmainiac]

> The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way.

Nah, I think it is more common of a cultural thing in individualistic societies. I know plenty of people who are worried about the future outlook of others they have never met. For example what phones and social media is doing to our children, or the state of the economy for young people.

[TeMPOraL]

I don't think it has much to do with individualism/collectivism. A lot of people are worried about a lot of things beyond themselves; most eventually realize it's bad for mental health and grow out of it, some pick a cause or three and act to make things better, and then there's also the lot that signal worry because it makes them look good.

Of course this is a process, so especially with younger populations, you are going to meet a lot of people worrying about random issues big and small, because it takes time to process it and learn the coping strategies.

[wasmainiac]

Sure people worry regardless. If it’s not A it’s B. Im talking about societies for example that ignore homeless and poverty, vs societies that have social welfare systems at the expense of high tax rates.

[da_chicken]

I really don't think the collectivist societies are that far ahead. People just invent out groups. India's castes, China's Uyghur's, Japan's castes and treatment of Korea and China, etc. Religious out groups, ethnic out groups, cultural out groups, linguistic out groups, etc. The list is just as long.

[wasmainiac]

This sounds like a big whataboutism, or at least oversimplification. The opposite of individualistic society could be western socialism.

> Religious out groups, ethnic out groups, cultural out groups.

Yeah, unfortunately seen this on all corners of the political spectrum, hidden or not.

[salawat]

Uh, no. That you believe that is more indicative of your proclivities than anyone else's, and also indicates the people around you are such that haven't challenged you to disabuse you of the notion. It isn't normal. It isn't okay to treat people as just numbers or means to an end, and Dunbar's number is not a license to be a psychopath to people beyond the handful we actively maintain relationships with.

You should treat people empathetically. You should treat the failure to do so by people as something noteworthy and concerning. The fact we as a society seek to optimize for elevating psychopaths for personal gain is part of the problem we've created for ourselves, and to be quite frank, was probably hijacked as early as the founding of the United States into a really problematic, if value creating cornerstone of society that could probably use a good deal of sunlight being shone on it for disinfection and rot clearing purposes.

[PsylentKnight]

I think you'd need to present some stats that compare how much the ultra-wealthy and normal people donate to altruistic causes (adjusted for income) to make that argument

[Swenrekcah]

Two people see an opportunity to make money. One of them recognizes the venture would harm the people involved and decides not to. The other either does not see the harm (so not a genius) or simply doesn't care (sociopath?). That person does the thing and makes the money.

That person is either some level of naive, some level of evil, but certainly not an evil genius.