> the Soviet court system under Stalin wasn't at all interested in justice. And, to play Devil's advocate, most of those in power under Stalin would likely hav

> the Soviet court system under Stalin wasn't at all interested in justice. And, to play Devil's advocate, most of those in power under Stalin would likely have claimed and honestly believed that it was a justice system and that it was using its might for the greater good. Outright sociopaths who simply don't care about harm are rare. When systems cause more harm than good, it's usually because well-intentioned participants fall prey to other human flaws: * Dehumanizing and believing that some groups are simply less worthy of care than others. * Biased data or beliefs about who is harmed and who is helped. * Principle-agent problems where the ones making the decisions don't see or own the consequences of them. * Emergent properties where no individual member of the system wants a result, but the system as a whole ends up producing it because of its structure. Sort of the beauracratic equivalent of crowd crush. The reason I'm pointing this out is because I think when non-totalitarian systems fail to help, it's usually for the same reasons. It's not because of psychopathic monsters. It's mostly that primate brains were never designed to operate at the organizational and power scale we have created. The fact that it works at all is a miracle.