Because no one see's themselves as the villain of their story. All the tyrants of history saw themselves as the good guy doing the right thing and some even believed they were doing it because a high power was telling them to do it.
Sep 17, 2022·edited Sep 17, 2022Liked by Mark Changizi
It's always done in service to a declared "greater good."
Buck v. Bell. "Three generations of imbeciles is enough" case law that stands today as US law. Cited as justification by Nuremberg defendants for their crimes against humanity. Law based on pseudoscience that purifying the gene pool serves the greater good for humanity:
Buck v. Bell. Guides Newgenics biotech today. Found in experimental vaccines, genetic editing, transhumanism. An interesting discussion of how the case law that guided the Final Solution is now guiding the future of humanity...again:
After bearing witness to pandemic health decisions declared for a "greater good," the drive for genital mutilation of children, destruction of food and energy supplies for a declared climate "greater good" do you believe these newgenics biotech efforts are being led by good or bad men?
"V. The Bad Man Test: Putting Limits on Newgenics in the 21st Century
Numerous authors have addressed the ethical issues surrounding “newgenic” practices, and, similar to bioethicist Julie Aultman, encouraged “collective moral deliberation” to address the challenges they present: “[t]o avoid unjust eugenomic practices that discriminate, segregate, disrespect and avoid issues of confidentiality and privacy, subjecting persons to unfair and intolerable treatment, we need to understand which moral principles ought to guide our decisions and actions.”
However, as Aultman points out, typically “ethics lags behind” science, and “this division creates obstacles for serious moral deliberation and critical developments in policy-making involving the social and economic implications of genetic research and technology.”
Maybe we will find that there is too much profit, speed, and power in genomics to keep everyone focused on ethics and morals once someone discovers the secrets to turning humans into non-human species or supermen, creating alien life, achieving immortality, or wiping out entire populations with a single genetic tweak, for example.
Will conversations about ethics and morality be enough to protect society from its own excitement when that happens, or will a stricter approach be warranted?
For inspiration, we might turn back to Justice Holmes. In The Path of the Law, many years prior to his decision in Buck, Holmes described the study of law as a prediction of how the courts will respond to a given action, and suggested that this is how a “bad man” naturally unconcerned with ethics or morals (and only concerned with whether he will have to pay a fine or go to jail) would approach the law. With this, Holmes laid the foundation for American Legal Realism and gave birth to what would be famously known as the “Bad Man Theory” of the law.
With this “bloodless and detached view of the law,” he may also have left for posterity an important insight into how we might need to restrain those who, like Holmes, Priddy, Strode, or Whitehead, while either not concerned with whether what they are doing is right, or fully believing they are doing the right thing, occasionally make widely consequential, harmful choices in the name of science and the greater good."
You're correct, evil people never see themselves as doing evil. Their greatest atrocities are just rationalized and justified by declaring a greater good is served by, "breaking eggs." As the New York Times did in its fawning praise of Stalin:
"Even then, Duranty dismissed more diligent writers’ reports that people were starving. “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine,” he wrote in a dispatch from Moscow in March of 1933 describing the “mess” of collectivization. “But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”"
I talk about the Karpman Dreaded Drama Triangle in my substack. It consists of the 3 roles: Persecutor, Victim, and Savior/Rescuer. From what I have seen all the authoritarian persecutors view themselves as the Savior/Rescuers. They see themselves telling the "noble lie" or trying to protect people from some "evil."
Because no one see's themselves as the villain of their story. All the tyrants of history saw themselves as the good guy doing the right thing and some even believed they were doing it because a high power was telling them to do it.
It's always done in service to a declared "greater good."
Buck v. Bell. "Three generations of imbeciles is enough" case law that stands today as US law. Cited as justification by Nuremberg defendants for their crimes against humanity. Law based on pseudoscience that purifying the gene pool serves the greater good for humanity:
https://sci-hub.se/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/106591295300600409
Buck v. Bell. Guides Newgenics biotech today. Found in experimental vaccines, genetic editing, transhumanism. An interesting discussion of how the case law that guided the Final Solution is now guiding the future of humanity...again:
https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1622&context=lawineq\
After bearing witness to pandemic health decisions declared for a "greater good," the drive for genital mutilation of children, destruction of food and energy supplies for a declared climate "greater good" do you believe these newgenics biotech efforts are being led by good or bad men?
"V. The Bad Man Test: Putting Limits on Newgenics in the 21st Century
Numerous authors have addressed the ethical issues surrounding “newgenic” practices, and, similar to bioethicist Julie Aultman, encouraged “collective moral deliberation” to address the challenges they present: “[t]o avoid unjust eugenomic practices that discriminate, segregate, disrespect and avoid issues of confidentiality and privacy, subjecting persons to unfair and intolerable treatment, we need to understand which moral principles ought to guide our decisions and actions.”
However, as Aultman points out, typically “ethics lags behind” science, and “this division creates obstacles for serious moral deliberation and critical developments in policy-making involving the social and economic implications of genetic research and technology.”
Maybe we will find that there is too much profit, speed, and power in genomics to keep everyone focused on ethics and morals once someone discovers the secrets to turning humans into non-human species or supermen, creating alien life, achieving immortality, or wiping out entire populations with a single genetic tweak, for example.
Will conversations about ethics and morality be enough to protect society from its own excitement when that happens, or will a stricter approach be warranted?
For inspiration, we might turn back to Justice Holmes. In The Path of the Law, many years prior to his decision in Buck, Holmes described the study of law as a prediction of how the courts will respond to a given action, and suggested that this is how a “bad man” naturally unconcerned with ethics or morals (and only concerned with whether he will have to pay a fine or go to jail) would approach the law. With this, Holmes laid the foundation for American Legal Realism and gave birth to what would be famously known as the “Bad Man Theory” of the law.
With this “bloodless and detached view of the law,” he may also have left for posterity an important insight into how we might need to restrain those who, like Holmes, Priddy, Strode, or Whitehead, while either not concerned with whether what they are doing is right, or fully believing they are doing the right thing, occasionally make widely consequential, harmful choices in the name of science and the greater good."
You're correct, evil people never see themselves as doing evil. Their greatest atrocities are just rationalized and justified by declaring a greater good is served by, "breaking eggs." As the New York Times did in its fawning praise of Stalin:
https://www.nytco.com/company/prizes-awards/new-york-times-statement-about-1932-pulitzer-prize-awarded-to-walter-duranty/
"Even then, Duranty dismissed more diligent writers’ reports that people were starving. “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine,” he wrote in a dispatch from Moscow in March of 1933 describing the “mess” of collectivization. “But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”"
I talk about the Karpman Dreaded Drama Triangle in my substack. It consists of the 3 roles: Persecutor, Victim, and Savior/Rescuer. From what I have seen all the authoritarian persecutors view themselves as the Savior/Rescuers. They see themselves telling the "noble lie" or trying to protect people from some "evil."