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Sometimes stupidity is indistinguishable from pure evilness. That's why I believe it's more practical to focus on removing inefficiency instead of corruption.

arethuza 15y ago
I suspect that humanities worst moments come from a combination of evil and stupidity, even if that stupidity is just a failure to predict what your actions will actually mean for others.
- nazgulnarsil 15y ago
  bandits aren't "evil". They simply have fallen into the trap evolution has laid for us all: rationalizing actions that benefit them.
- stcredzero 15y ago
  I suspect that humanities [sic] worst moments come from a combination of evil and stupidity Witness: - Failure of military leaders to recognize the implications of advancing firearms technology starting in the Civil War - Failure of national governments to recognize the geopolitical instability embodied by the competing systems of alliances prior to WWI - Failure of national governments to recognize the economic and political instability caused by treaties prior to WWII - Disconnect of German leadership from reality through advocacy of economic and biological pseudoscientific theories - Disconnect of Soviet leadership from social and economic reality It seems that the caveman-mob level of broken thinking we exhibit as national groups caused all sorts of technology-amplified havoc in the 19th and 20th centuries. I wonder if it's any better in the 21st century? - Burgeoning US debt, and the political impediments to solving it - Calamitous global environmental changes, also accompanied by political impediments to solution What are the odds of solving our current problems without bloodshed? Probably very near zero. The best we can hope for is to limit the scope of bloodshed to militants, small regional conflicts, and assassinations. After all, we are still mostly just mobs of tribal cavemen.

arethuza 15y ago

I suspect that humanities worst moments come from a combination of evil and stupidity, even if that stupidity is just a failure to predict what your actions will actually mean for others.

nazgulnarsil 15y ago
bandits aren't "evil". They simply have fallen into the trap evolution has laid for us all: rationalizing actions that benefit them.
stcredzero 15y ago
I suspect that humanities [sic] worst moments come from a combination of evil and stupidity Witness: - Failure of military leaders to recognize the implications of advancing firearms technology starting in the Civil War - Failure of national governments to recognize the geopolitical instability embodied by the competing systems of alliances prior to WWI - Failure of national governments to recognize the economic and political instability caused by treaties prior to WWII - Disconnect of German leadership from reality through advocacy of economic and biological pseudoscientific theories - Disconnect of Soviet leadership from social and economic reality It seems that the caveman-mob level of broken thinking we exhibit as national groups caused all sorts of technology-amplified havoc in the 19th and 20th centuries. I wonder if it's any better in the 21st century? - Burgeoning US debt, and the political impediments to solving it - Calamitous global environmental changes, also accompanied by political impediments to solution What are the odds of solving our current problems without bloodshed? Probably very near zero. The best we can hope for is to limit the scope of bloodshed to militants, small regional conflicts, and assassinations. After all, we are still mostly just mobs of tribal cavemen.