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> Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is worse than evil because stupidity can be manipulated and used by evil This pretty much refutes the headline . I

> Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that stupidity is worse than evil because stupidity can be manipulated and used by evil This pretty much refutes the headline . It’s a false dichotomy to begin with, but if stupidity’s biggest issue is that evil can manipulate it, clearly it’s the preeence of evil that’s a bigger threat than the presence of stupidity.

LargeTomato 3y ago
Evil is rational. You can negotiate with rational. Stupid is irrational.
philwelch 3y ago
That's a bad argument but there is a better argument. An evil person will hurt other people for his own benefit, but a stupid person will hurt other people even at his own detriment, which makes stupidity even more pointlessly destructive. I'm cribbing from Carlo Cipolla's "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" here, and for him this is a definitional feature of stupidity: "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."
- jstarfish 3y ago
  > An evil person will hurt other people for his own benefit, but a stupid person will hurt other people even at his own detriment, which makes stupidity even more pointlessly destructive This could probably be refined a bit; you're on the right track but the logic doesn't work. I think we can all agree school shooters are Evil. They almost always commit suicide to avoid arrest. Damage to others is extensive, damage to self is mortal, and yet they go through with both planning and execution. Mitigating all risk of collateral damage in the commission of an evil act is not a requisite for Evil. If anything, acceptance of harm to self makes it more evil. > "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. Your boy Carlo has clearly never been through an acrimonious divorce.
  - inglor_cz 3y ago
    "I think we can all agree school shooters are Evil." There is a question where evil ends and insanity begins. Totally self-destructive actions such as this strike me as insane. It would be a different story if the school shooter wanted to establish his own gang rule by sheer terror (say, in a country where law enforcement is weak or absent, e.g. Haiti). That would be textbook evil.
    - jstarfish 3y ago
      > There is a question where evil ends and insanity begins. Totally self-destructive actions such as this strike me as insane. That gets nebulous though. Even a murderous schizophrenic isn't evil. Failed military offensives that end in your execution aren't the product of insanity. Firefighters aren't insane for running into burning buildings. Self-destructive actions can be rationalized. Whether you agree with the rationale is not the point. Like terrorism, school shootings are intentional and initiated to do as much damage to others as possible, usually in response to some personal grievance. There's always a shitty "reason" for it. Insanity--real insanity--would be more like sending a pipe bomb to a random daycare center for absolutely no reason whatsoever. There is zero predictability. Nobody did anything to "deserve" it. I've seen some kids try to play at "insanity" by doing shit to people for no apparent reason (and being all "tee-hee I'm so insane lmao #murder"), but when you dig into forensics you find they researched the eventual victim and only engaged once they say or do something objectionable (the new face of "hate crime," perpetrated by the types most likely to call others out for the same). This is not insanity, it's very-calculated evil.
    - hurrdurr56 3y ago
      Well, it ultimately depends on how you want to define insanity. Most of the school shooters aren't schizophrenic. They usually aren't complaining about hearing voices or hallucinating. When the media claims they had a "history of mental illness" it usually means mild to moderate depression, anxiety, ADHD, things of that nature. Some of them will claim to have a political or ideological cause but most of the time their manifesto (if they bother to write one) consists of something like "Everything is meaningless bullshit and I am going to prove it by killing a bunch of random people for no reason".
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  > "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses." I think this comes down to motivation. Are they causing losses to other people just because they didn't think, or miscalculated? That's being stupid. Or are they causing losses to other people because of spite? That is, they may not gain in any material way, but they may gain in satisfaction. That's being evil.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    I think it’s relative to your own value system. If a man dies rescuing his family from a house fire, that’s a loss for him in some sense but in that man’s own value system, it’s a win because he values his family’s lives over his own. The word “spite” implies a certain pettiness that usually indicates that you don’t actually value satisfying the grudge more than what you’re losing so you’re just being stupid. My mom always used to say, “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”. But if you brood and premeditate on a resentment until you wholeheartedly accept it and are still willing to make personal sacrifices to satisfy it, that’s less “spite” and more “revenge”, and it becomes evil.
Cpoll 3y ago
That sounds kind of like "guns don't kill people, people kill people."
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  Guns are made to kill people. Are stupid people made for evil?
  - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
    the vast majority of guns are not used for killing people, the entire frame of your response is flawed.
    - aplummer 3y ago
      This is a strawman, they never said “the vast majority” or “used”. They said “guns are made for killing people” which is absolutely a true statement, many guns are specifically made for killing people.
      - thdespou 3y ago
        >guns are made for killing people As a consequence guns can be used as a deterrence as well. Since their primary purpose is to cause great harm, people that value their lives and not commit stupid actions.
        aplummer 3y ago
        Yep also completely true.
      - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
        well in that case, pencils are made for killing people and my evidence is that a pencil has been used to kill a person.
        3y ago
mcv 3y ago
Stupidity is fickle and unpredictable. It doesn't have a plan, which sometimes makes it less dangerous than evil, but it also makes it unpredictable can cause a lot of damage because nobody is prepared for it. I find it hard to discuss stupidity and evil without mentioning Donald Trump, who is well endowed in both. Both his malice and his stupidity have done a lot of damage, but there have also been times when his malice was thwarted by his stupidity.
- oceanplexian 3y ago
  I mean, if stupidity is what it takes to get the economy back into the state it was in 2019, I’m all for it. Especially in matters of economics, the most dangerous people seem to be the most educated. They can’t leave it alone and perpetually try to refactor society for some non-economic purpose. When you finally get “an idiot” who removes the boot of the government, unsurprisingly (to everyone except the economists), the result is economic growth.
  - mcv 3y ago
    Briefly. And then the economy crashes. The longest periods of sustained economic growth happened because of regulation and government investment. Deregulation and lack of investment have lead to economic crashes every couple of years. The boom-bust cycle might be fun for investors who see it coming, but not for the people losing their homes.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nrb 3y ago
I think their point is that stupidity is an extremely effective force multiplier for evil, and it’s way more common. I’m not sure I would buy the argument for the inverse.

LargeTomato 3y ago

Evil is rational. You can negotiate with rational. Stupid is irrational.

philwelch 3y ago

That's a bad argument but there is a better argument. An evil person will hurt other people for his own benefit, but a stupid person will hurt other people even at his own detriment, which makes stupidity even more pointlessly destructive. I'm cribbing from Carlo Cipolla's "The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity" here, and for him this is a definitional feature of stupidity: "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."

jstarfish 3y ago
> An evil person will hurt other people for his own benefit, but a stupid person will hurt other people even at his own detriment, which makes stupidity even more pointlessly destructive This could probably be refined a bit; you're on the right track but the logic doesn't work. I think we can all agree school shooters are Evil. They almost always commit suicide to avoid arrest. Damage to others is extensive, damage to self is mortal, and yet they go through with both planning and execution. Mitigating all risk of collateral damage in the commission of an evil act is not a requisite for Evil. If anything, acceptance of harm to self makes it more evil. > "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses. Your boy Carlo has clearly never been through an acrimonious divorce.
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  "I think we can all agree school shooters are Evil." There is a question where evil ends and insanity begins. Totally self-destructive actions such as this strike me as insane. It would be a different story if the school shooter wanted to establish his own gang rule by sheer terror (say, in a country where law enforcement is weak or absent, e.g. Haiti). That would be textbook evil.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    > There is a question where evil ends and insanity begins. Totally self-destructive actions such as this strike me as insane. That gets nebulous though. Even a murderous schizophrenic isn't evil. Failed military offensives that end in your execution aren't the product of insanity. Firefighters aren't insane for running into burning buildings. Self-destructive actions can be rationalized. Whether you agree with the rationale is not the point. Like terrorism, school shootings are intentional and initiated to do as much damage to others as possible, usually in response to some personal grievance. There's always a shitty "reason" for it. Insanity--real insanity--would be more like sending a pipe bomb to a random daycare center for absolutely no reason whatsoever. There is zero predictability. Nobody did anything to "deserve" it. I've seen some kids try to play at "insanity" by doing shit to people for no apparent reason (and being all "tee-hee I'm so insane lmao #murder"), but when you dig into forensics you find they researched the eventual victim and only engaged once they say or do something objectionable (the new face of "hate crime," perpetrated by the types most likely to call others out for the same). This is not insanity, it's very-calculated evil.
  - hurrdurr56 3y ago
    Well, it ultimately depends on how you want to define insanity. Most of the school shooters aren't schizophrenic. They usually aren't complaining about hearing voices or hallucinating. When the media claims they had a "history of mental illness" it usually means mild to moderate depression, anxiety, ADHD, things of that nature. Some of them will claim to have a political or ideological cause but most of the time their manifesto (if they bother to write one) consists of something like "Everything is meaningless bullshit and I am going to prove it by killing a bunch of random people for no reason".
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
> "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses." I think this comes down to motivation. Are they causing losses to other people just because they didn't think, or miscalculated? That's being stupid. Or are they causing losses to other people because of spite? That is, they may not gain in any material way, but they may gain in satisfaction. That's being evil.
- philwelch 3y ago
  I think it’s relative to your own value system. If a man dies rescuing his family from a house fire, that’s a loss for him in some sense but in that man’s own value system, it’s a win because he values his family’s lives over his own. The word “spite” implies a certain pettiness that usually indicates that you don’t actually value satisfying the grudge more than what you’re losing so you’re just being stupid. My mom always used to say, “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”. But if you brood and premeditate on a resentment until you wholeheartedly accept it and are still willing to make personal sacrifices to satisfy it, that’s less “spite” and more “revenge”, and it becomes evil.

Cpoll 3y ago

That sounds kind of like "guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Capricorn2481 3y ago
Guns are made to kill people. Are stupid people made for evil?
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  the vast majority of guns are not used for killing people, the entire frame of your response is flawed.
  - aplummer 3y ago
    This is a strawman, they never said “the vast majority” or “used”. They said “guns are made for killing people” which is absolutely a true statement, many guns are specifically made for killing people.
    - thdespou 3y ago
      >guns are made for killing people As a consequence guns can be used as a deterrence as well. Since their primary purpose is to cause great harm, people that value their lives and not commit stupid actions.
      - aplummer 3y ago
        Yep also completely true.
    - PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
      well in that case, pencils are made for killing people and my evidence is that a pencil has been used to kill a person.
      - 3y ago

mcv 3y ago

Stupidity is fickle and unpredictable. It doesn't have a plan, which sometimes makes it less dangerous than evil, but it also makes it unpredictable can cause a lot of damage because nobody is prepared for it. I find it hard to discuss stupidity and evil without mentioning Donald Trump, who is well endowed in both. Both his malice and his stupidity have done a lot of damage, but there have also been times when his malice was thwarted by his stupidity.

oceanplexian 3y ago
I mean, if stupidity is what it takes to get the economy back into the state it was in 2019, I’m all for it. Especially in matters of economics, the most dangerous people seem to be the most educated. They can’t leave it alone and perpetually try to refactor society for some non-economic purpose. When you finally get “an idiot” who removes the boot of the government, unsurprisingly (to everyone except the economists), the result is economic growth.
- mcv 3y ago
  Briefly. And then the economy crashes. The longest periods of sustained economic growth happened because of regulation and government investment. Deregulation and lack of investment have lead to economic crashes every couple of years. The boom-bust cycle might be fun for investors who see it coming, but not for the people losing their homes.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

nrb 3y ago

I think their point is that stupidity is an extremely effective force multiplier for evil, and it’s way more common. I’m not sure I would buy the argument for the inverse.