# What evil is

We all easily [feel](mind-feelings.md) and [know](understanding.md) evil when we see it, but it's [disgusting and uncomfortable](mind-feelings-disgust.md) to even [define](values.md) it. For that reason, we tend not to explore it further.

Evil is discomforting to us, so we tend to [politicize](image-distortion.md) evil in others and abstract it to [groups](groups-large.md) we're not associated with, while at the same time dislike considering how our [decisions](people-decisions.md) or groups may be evil.

We also like to behave as if others' evil were incomprehensible to us, even when we would *thoroughly* [understand](understanding.md) if we spent a few seconds considering how someone could have [decided](people-decisions.md) in a situation.

Evil, however, does exist. Even to the most morally relativistic person, they'll still regard moral absolutes or things that encroach on their self-preservation as evil.

Evil always has a few elements:

1. An active [decision](people-decisions.md) or [plan](imagination.md) for a decision, which may be past-tense if it's [habitual](habits.md).
2. Self-interested [gain](purpose.md) for the decider or desire to destroy another living being.
3. If it's [performed](results.md), pain for the victim through [unjustly](morality-justice.md) violating their [boundaries](people-boundaries.md).

Any [value](values.md) which isn't a [virtue](morality.md) can become evil if it's taken to excess:

- Boldness, taken to excess, becomes foolish audacity (i.e., discretion is the better part of valor).
- Compassion, taken to excess, becomes unhealthy enabling (i.e., paternalism).
- Efficiency, taken to excess, becomes callousness or harshness.

APPLICATION: We must consider *both* the principle and consequences of a moral action to dictate whether something was evil. While someone merely following orders in an evil system isn't *as* evil, they're still a moral participant in something evil.

While many people imagine good and evil on a spectrum, evil is more an *absence* of [virtue](morality.md):

- Selfishness is the absence of compassion or consideration for others.
- Conceit is the absence of humility.
- Impatience is the absence of patience.
- Harshness is the absence of kindness.

However, the absence of virtue *does* represent itself on a general spectrum by how the sacrifices are motivated:

1. Self-sacrificial effort strictly for the interests of others.
2. Self-sacrificial effort oriented toward others' interest, but also serving personal interests.
3. Sacrifices that serve personal benefit more than others' benefit.
4. Sacrifices that serve personal benefit, without considering the interests of others whatsoever.
5. Self-interested sacrifices that benefit the self more than harming others.
6. Self-interested sacrifices that harm others more than providing self-benefit.
7. Self-interested actions done out of pleasure that harm others.
8. Actions taken out of pleasure that harm others.

## Awareness and evil

We [understand](understanding.md) many of our needs from birth and must be [taught](understanding.md) others', so everyone is born selfish. Selfishness merely requires *not* thinking about anyone else. This is technically evil, but [normative](people-culture.md) enough that we give plenty of grace for it.

APPLICATION: Every child is born with the capacity to be evil, so society will *always* have a problem with evil as long as it keeps having children. The only way to change it is to reconstruct our entire [formation](humanity.md) from our conception before birth. All we can do is either [socially engineer](people-rules.md) [justice](morality-justice.md) to curb it, or inspire people through [faith](understanding-certainty.md) to [change](people-changes.md) for [something beyond themselves](morality.md).

As we [grow](maturity.md), continuing to care more about ourselves than others will develop that selfishness into evil. In that sense, everyone is born a little evil and must be trained against it by their [parents](people-family.md) by demonstrating how our [actions can affect others](results.md).

Our adaptation toward evil starts *very* early on. Starting at about 6 months old, we start abusing others' [boundaries](people-boundaries.md). Some people may debate an infant's [understanding](understanding.md), but it's perfectly clear they don't [care about](people-love.md) anyone but themselves.

When we become [aware](awareness.md) of evil [habits](habits.md), we are more likely to stop them. This isn't always true, though, since we must have at least some [love](people-love.md) of others to even consider it. Often, we can use that awareness to [hide their evil](image-distortion.md) further.

APPLICATION: People are sometimes [unaware](awareness.md) of their evil, so we must seek to [inform](people-conversation.md) them before taking action against them. This doesn't always work, though, and we must use good [rules](people-rules.md) to keep ourselves [safe](safety.md).

APPLICATION: Evil people confronted about their evil often become more clever. It's not wise to address the nuances of evil unless you're aware how the information you give may help them become more dangerous if they don't [decide](people-decisions.md) to [change](people-changes.md) for the better.

Many people falsely believe evil decisions are products of stupidity. While evil is typically focused on short-term gain, self-interested and inconsiderate [decisions](people-decisions.md) come through all possible scopes of [understanding](understanding.md) and breadth of time, and the most evil people in the world are also the most [intelligent](power.md).

APPLICATION: Evil isn't wise, but intelligence can compensate for it, and some of the most evil people on the planet are so intelligent that they hide it well.

## Decisions

Evil decisions require [power](power.md) to perform it. Otherwise, the only evil a person can commit is within their [imagination](imagination.md).

Every single person has the capacity for evil by making a few key [immoral](morality.md) [decisions](people-decisions.md), then committing them to [habit](habits.md):

1. Ignore when [other people say "no"](people-conflicts.md), which requires intentionally not [observing them](image.md).
2. Attack anyone who enforces their [rights](morality-justice.md) or questions your [privileges](results.md).
3. Withhold from anyone who needs anything.
4. Exercise every privilege as far as you [feel](mind-feelings.md) like.
5. [Hide](image-distortion.md) anything that may threaten your [power](power.md) as much as possible, then [blame others](image-distortion.md) for anything others discover.
6. Insult and degrade anyone you [dislike](mind-feelings-disgust.md) or who threatens your [power](power.md).
7. Scale upwards to make a [system](mgmt-badsystems.md) that serves your interests more than others, but maintain a kind-looking [image](image.md) of [morality](morality.md) to subdue any opposition.

APPLICATION: Everyone is about 20-50 key [decisions](people-decisions.md) away from becoming evil. [Virtue](morality.md) hurts us in the short-term, so all we'd need to do is submit to our baser desires and disregard others.

On the other hand, being good requires trained [virtue](morality.md) that goes against our impulses:

1. Respect others' [boundaries](people-boundaries.md) and honor their right to say "no" about their [rights](morality-justice.md).
2. Maintain respect for others when they disregard your privileges.
3. Give to others when they require things more than you.
4. Only exercise your rights.
5. Take responsibility for failures and fully own [decisions](people-decisions.md).
6. Sacrifice [power](power.md) out of [love](people-love.md) for others.
7. Scale upwards to [influence](influence.md) others to serve others themselves, driven by building virtuous [habits](habits.md).

Most [religious institutions](religion.md) provoke us to virtue, at least partly.

APPLICATION: Evil [purposes](purpose.md) are frequently a shortcut to a comparably virtuous purpose.

[Fantasizing](imagination.md) about performing evil is just as morally damaging to the [soul](humanity.md) as actually doing it, though it's completely [unenforceable](people-rules.md) in society.

## The motivation for evil

We commit evil through a few possible mental approaches.

### Gratification

We may simply want to have something, with zero regard for others. This aspect is [culturally acceptable](culture.md) since we are born, but becomes less permissible as we [age](maturity.md).

Self-pleasure, along with the contrasting virtue of temperance, is [habit-forming](habits.md), which means that most of this moral battle is within the subconscious world of [automatic habits](https://adequate.life/habits/).

APPLICATION: If it [feels](mind-feelings.md) good, we should only do it unquestionably if it also feels good for everyone else, present and future.

When that self-gratification is left unchecked, we will often seek more [power](power.md) to gain the [substance](addiction-substances.md), and will slowly descend into an [addiction](addiction.md) state.

APPLICATION: The desire for [power](power.md), whenever it's the final [purpose](purpose.md) above all else, is always evil. Even when it started as a desire for [safety](safety.md) or was driven by [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md), desiring power becomes evil when it prioritizes things or [values](values.md) over others. The only cure to this is [humility](morality.md) toward and [love](people-love.md) for others.

### Conceit/arrogance/pride

Conceit is the desire to be better than others. Unlike almost anything else that could drive evil, it's strictly competitive.

Conceit never concerns itself with [status](image.md) or [power,](power.md) except as a comparison. It's not about being "rich" or "smart", but about being "richer than" or "smarter than".

Arrogance is dangerous because it's never fully satisfied. If someone wishes to be *the* best, they're working against the statistical likelihood that they're [built](reality.md) a certain way. If they accomplish something, the competitive drive will naturally turn to something else, and it will never stop.

APPLICATION: The competitive drive to be better than others is why many [systems can turn evil](mgmt-badsystems.md).

Often, this arrogance transitions into the desire to [transcend death](legacy.md).

After conceit has taken hold, a person will only view others in one of three lenses:

1. They're a means to their greatness, which is evil by using people to a self-promoting [end](purpose.md). Its only cure is [love](people-love.md) for the person they're abusing.
2. They're an impediment to their greatness, which will become evil when the person decides to overthrow that greatness. Its only cure is [humility](morality.md).
3. They're irrelevant to their greatness. This can build [friendship](people-friends.md) when there are shared goals, our [development](maturity.md) means that person will later become one of the other two.

Every human is at least a little arrogant. The clearest sign is when we try to [hide reality](image-distortion.md) from others or use our [influence](influence.md) to [control others](power.md).

### Revenge

Revenge is the desire for self-imposed equivalent [justice](morality-justice.md).

However, since we have a limited [understanding](understanding.md) of others' [feelings](mind-feelings.md), especially while we feel wronged, we tend to overstate how bad we feel and understate how bad others feel.

The product of vengeful thinking, therefore, is that we tend to hurt people *more* than they hurt us: "eye for an eye" becomes "face for an eye".

One variation of revenge is envy. However, instead of pure vengeance directed at a person's [actions](results.md), it's directed at a person's [status](image.md). It's a passive hatred that broadly focuses toward the [groups](groups-member.md) that formed that status, though most envious people are unaware exactly what their hatred or arrogance stands against.

### Mix-and-match motives

Evil is a void and not an opposite, so there are *many* varieties of it, from an endless supply of distorted motivations.

We often combine our evil with varieties of [virtue](morality.md) to create [powerful](power.md), [influential](influence.md) ideas. The most potent evils in the world were driven by people following what they interpreted as a [trend](trends.md) of goodness. We frequently justify it as "the greater good". Curiosity, for example, is a good thing that becomes bad when we're willing to violate others' [boundaries](people-boundaries.md) to [understand](understanding.md) what we want.

One of the easiest ways we can mix in evil is by morally "balancing" ourselves. We'll frequently desire to do good things (and [feel](mind-feelings.md) good from it), but don't [do](results.md) anything to reflect our desires. Good [intentions](purpose.md) only make people good if we make efforts to perform it, and well-intended evil actions are still evil.

Another form of "balancing" is to justify evil because we had previously done a good thing. Those things are disconnected, but we've assigned [symbolic](symbols.md) connections between those things to [enforce](purpose.md) what we [feel](mind-feelings.md) like doing. This can be particularly disgusting if we use evil to *advance* good (e.g., stealing to [provide for a family](people-family.md)).