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> The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil.

BeetleB 5y ago
This is a classical logical fallacy. To give an extreme example: The worse evils in history have always been committed by those who drink water. Beware of drinking water. It may be the case that those who commit evils believed they were combating evil. It doesn't at all mean that the majority of those who believe they are combating evil are committing evil.
- dmichulke 5y ago
  My interpretation is: "... by those and only those who [...] combat evil" forall X: combats_evil(X) <=> does_evil(X) but not forall X: drinks_water(X) <=> does_evil(X)
- dionidium 5y ago
  You'll note that the tyrants of world history have often said directly that their actions are justified by the need to fight evil. I don't recall any claiming that their actions were justified by drinking water or brushing their teeth or eating apples or enjoying the cinema of any of a million other random correlations we might imagine. But they have claimed explicitly that fighting evil was a direct cause of their actions (as have their supporters and adherents). That's why we have reason to believe the relationship might be causal. (Not every claim of causation demands a "correlation isn't causation" response.)
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    This doesn't address my comment at all, and you're not disagreeing with me.
    - dionidium 5y ago
      To address your comment another way, the majority of drunk drivers make it home safely, but drunk driving is a bad pattern that leads to bad outcomes. It does no good to point out that most drunk drivers actually make it home just fine (and it's certainly not fallacious to warn others that drunk driving leads to negative outcomes, even if it actually usually doesn't). The belief that one is fighting evil is a standard negative pattern in human behavior. One should watch out for it, even if it sometimes works out ok, because when it doesn't you just crossed the center line and killed a family of four on their way to grandma's.
      - BeetleB 5y ago
        The difference, though, is that there is little good you can say about drunk drivers. There are no known positive outcomes of driving while drunk. However, plenty of good does come out of people striving to fight evil. Trivial examples are having a justice system (even with all its down sides).
        dionidium 5y ago
        I know HN hates joke responses, but it's late in this thread and nobody is paying attention anyway, so what the hell :) https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en
guerrilla 5y ago
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This is why we should always judge projects based on whether we value their goals and how effective they are at accomplishing those goals.
CoastalCoder 5y ago
Am I just showcasing my own ignorance by wanting support for this claim? I've heard it stated elsewhere, but I've never heard a detailed argument supporting it. The closest justification I recall hearing is a vague reference to the Spanish Inquisition.
- the_lonely_road 5y ago
  Mother Teresa is likely to be a good example as long as you believe she thought she was doing gods work and agree that the details of how she did that are reprehensible.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    What is reprehensible about how she did what she did?
    - _jal 5y ago
      As with most things, Wikipedia will get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa A relevant quote from there summarizing some of them: "caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, ... her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce".
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Her "overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce" are, I suspect, orthodox Catholic doctrine. As for the rest, critics criticize. She sure wasn't using the money she received to get personally rich. She was working with/caring for people that nobody else was. While less than perfect, I'm not seeing "reprehensible" anywhere in the substance of the criticism. (Read the "Responses to criticism" section of that article for a decent explanation of why most of the criticism is completely missing the point.)
akomtu 5y ago
"Combating" here likely means doing evil things in order to combat other evil things. For example, the "Inferno" movie's plot was to release a virus to downsize the population in order to combat global warming.
- dionidium 5y ago
  I think even that's too generous. It can also mean misidentifying and mislabeling (or at the very least, overreacting to) the causes of something one thinks is evil. One might decide, for example, that the workers in early 20th century Russia have been unfairly oppressed by the kulaks and then, upon determining therefore that those kulaks meet a standard for "evil," sleep soundly carrying out actions that result in their mass enslavement and starvation (all in the name of fighting oppression).

BeetleB 5y ago

This is a classical logical fallacy. To give an extreme example: The worse evils in history have always been committed by those who drink water. Beware of drinking water. It may be the case that those who commit evils believed they were combating evil. It doesn't at all mean that the majority of those who believe they are combating evil are committing evil.

dmichulke 5y ago
My interpretation is: "... by those and only those who [...] combat evil" forall X: combats_evil(X) <=> does_evil(X) but not forall X: drinks_water(X) <=> does_evil(X)
dionidium 5y ago
You'll note that the tyrants of world history have often said directly that their actions are justified by the need to fight evil. I don't recall any claiming that their actions were justified by drinking water or brushing their teeth or eating apples or enjoying the cinema of any of a million other random correlations we might imagine. But they have claimed explicitly that fighting evil was a direct cause of their actions (as have their supporters and adherents). That's why we have reason to believe the relationship might be causal. (Not every claim of causation demands a "correlation isn't causation" response.)
- BeetleB 5y ago
  This doesn't address my comment at all, and you're not disagreeing with me.
  - dionidium 5y ago
    To address your comment another way, the majority of drunk drivers make it home safely, but drunk driving is a bad pattern that leads to bad outcomes. It does no good to point out that most drunk drivers actually make it home just fine (and it's certainly not fallacious to warn others that drunk driving leads to negative outcomes, even if it actually usually doesn't). The belief that one is fighting evil is a standard negative pattern in human behavior. One should watch out for it, even if it sometimes works out ok, because when it doesn't you just crossed the center line and killed a family of four on their way to grandma's.
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      The difference, though, is that there is little good you can say about drunk drivers. There are no known positive outcomes of driving while drunk. However, plenty of good does come out of people striving to fight evil. Trivial examples are having a justice system (even with all its down sides).
      - dionidium 5y ago
        I know HN hates joke responses, but it's late in this thread and nobody is paying attention anyway, so what the hell :) https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en https://twitter.com/dril/status/464802196060917762?lang=en

guerrilla 5y ago

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This is why we should always judge projects based on whether we value their goals and how effective they are at accomplishing those goals.

CoastalCoder 5y ago

Am I just showcasing my own ignorance by wanting support for this claim? I've heard it stated elsewhere, but I've never heard a detailed argument supporting it. The closest justification I recall hearing is a vague reference to the Spanish Inquisition.

the_lonely_road 5y ago
Mother Teresa is likely to be a good example as long as you believe she thought she was doing gods work and agree that the details of how she did that are reprehensible.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  What is reprehensible about how she did what she did?
  - _jal 5y ago
    As with most things, Wikipedia will get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa A relevant quote from there summarizing some of them: "caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, ... her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce".
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Her "overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce" are, I suspect, orthodox Catholic doctrine. As for the rest, critics criticize. She sure wasn't using the money she received to get personally rich. She was working with/caring for people that nobody else was. While less than perfect, I'm not seeing "reprehensible" anywhere in the substance of the criticism. (Read the "Responses to criticism" section of that article for a decent explanation of why most of the criticism is completely missing the point.)

akomtu 5y ago

"Combating" here likely means doing evil things in order to combat other evil things. For example, the "Inferno" movie's plot was to release a virus to downsize the population in order to combat global warming.

dionidium 5y ago
I think even that's too generous. It can also mean misidentifying and mislabeling (or at the very least, overreacting to) the causes of something one thinks is evil. One might decide, for example, that the workers in early 20th century Russia have been unfairly oppressed by the kulaks and then, upon determining therefore that those kulaks meet a standard for "evil," sleep soundly carrying out actions that result in their mass enslavement and starvation (all in the name of fighting oppression).