If you had to pick one, for any situation, which would it be?

[Vitalius]

The below pictures are just examples and not explicitly what I'm asking about. Which would you prefer in any particular situation, where you had to have one, or the other directly influencing/affecting you (i.e. video game companies, the government, etc.)? Both or neither is not an option unfortunately.

Malevolence (Evil)



OR

Incompetence (Stupid)



Chart for reference:


Where "Greed" is "Malevolence (Evil)".

I personally would prefer incompetence. I can out-do incompetence. To a degree. Malevolence is harder to deal with since benevolence doesn't have a default (straightforward, understood) advantage.

I don't know. What about you?

[Assassin]

My favorite piece of advice has always been this line from Epictetus's handbook.

 

If you have an earnest desire of attaining to philosophy, prepare yourself from the very first to be laughed at, to be sneered by the multitude, to hear them say,." He is returned to us a philosopher all at once," and " Whence this supercilious look?" Now, for your part, don't have a supercilious look indeed; but keep steadily to those things which appear best to you as one appointed by God to this station. For remember that, if you adhere to the same point, those very persons who at first ridiculed will afterwards admire you. But if you are conquered by them, you will incur a double ridicule. 

 

 

Also I agree on Stalin on that one although I should not get into the habit of agreeing with Stalin.

[Volbet]

I'd take incompetence any day.

 

Malevolence implies that the party is doing intentional harm for their own benefit. This would also imply some sort of intelligence behind their actions, which I can't really combat.

Incompentace I would be able to work against on a grass roots level.

[BrandedUpontheGrave]

I want my fonts back over being unable to use them, they've recently reworded 'font colors' to include 'font types' heck I'm still reflexively micing (yeah we'll go with that...) my way over to those options every time I start a post, ah! Joseph Stalin wouldn't let me have my fonts back!

 

 

On a more serious note I'd agree with you regarding Incompetent VS Competent but greedy company.

[Vitalius]

-snip-

It's funny, because Epictetus mentions God appointing them to that station, then there's his whole "very atheist-y" quote. TBH, I don't know the context of that quote or what point he was trying to make, but from face-value, that's what it seems like.

 

-snip-

Same. I figured that'd be what most people would say. I was just curious if someone would mention something I didn't think about regarding malevolence that might change my mind.

[Vitalius]

*facepalm* I didn't add the poll. Way to go me. I edited the main post and added it: Assassin, Volbet, and BrandedUpontheGrave.

[Assassin]

It's funny, because Epictetus mentions God appointing them to that station, then there's his whole "very atheist-y" quote. TBH, I don't know the context of that quote or what point he was trying to make, but from face-value, that's what it seems like.

 

Same. I figured that'd be what most people would say. I was just curious if someone would mention something I didn't think about regarding malevolence that might change my mind.

 

I just think he was trying to appeal to the general public at the time saying that hold your values as if god himself had appointed you to do so. You can read his handbook here for free. It's really short.

 

http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html

[Volbet]

Same. I figured that'd be what most people would say. I was just curious if someone would mention something I didn't think about regarding malevolence that might change my mind.

For the sake of argument, let's keep to talking about governments, since companies are quite a different beast to slay.

And I will take my own safety as the measurement for good in my post. So, more safety for me = more good. This might be a wrong way to do it, but that's what debate is for. 

 

A malevolent government might be preferable in a war situation. Say the US was invaded by Russia. if the US government was malevolent (Alex Jones got his wet dream forfilled), but it still had an interst in preserving its citizens via military force, that would be better than incompetence.

I would prefere this malevolent government just for it's efficiency compared to an incompetent government.

This would also assume that the Russian invaders would be worse than what was already in the US:

 

Edit: This example doesn't necessarily need to be about war. it would be applicable to any sort of major crisis, where major actions are needed. 

 

It's funny, because Epictetus mentions God appointing them to that station, then there's his whole "very atheist-y" quote. TBH, I don't know the context of that quote or what point he was trying to make, but from face-value, that's what it seems like.

Epicurus is a hard philosopher to crack, since we are missing most of his writtings. 

He might have started out as a materialist and moved into a philosophy more inspired by Plato. Or it could have been the other way around. 

He could also be placed somewhere between a theistic and a deistic worldview, where the god(s) did play a small roll in human sociaty, but we, as humans, didn't need to pay god(s) any attention. But this is just my speculation.

But this is neither here nor there, and I'll stop derailing the thread.

[juretrn]

Let's get one thing straight first : Stalin was a horrible dictator, responsible for a great many human deaths and suffering.

However, he put his foot down when necessary and made the USSR the superpower it was.

How much was he evil and not simply paranoid is debatable. In the end, he did a lot for his country. Incompetent leaders on the other hand just waste everybody's time.

[Assassin]

Let's get one thing straight first : Stalin was a horrible dictator, responsible for a great many human deaths and suffering.

However, he put his foot down when necessary and made the USSR the superpower it was.

How much was he evil and not simply paranoid is debatable. In the end, he did a lot for his country. Incompetent leaders on the other hand just waste everybody's time.

I agree you with you. 

On an unrelated note I tend to side over with reality than morality.

[Vitalius]

Another point against Incompetence: Malevolence is harder to get out of power/destroy. Incompetence is blind and easily surmountable. 

Huh. I thought it'd be more interesting than a clear cut choice. Oh well. Dumb thread by me.

[Calavera]

I thought my English was pretty good but there are too many terms to decipher...

[Fred Castellum]

Dang Vitalius you changed your profile picture... I didn't know you were the OP of the thread for the first 10 minutes...

 

I'd take incompetence any day. I find it more tolerable than malevolence. 

[Hidden Orange]

Malovolence. I'd rather have the world go into flames and humanity killing itself off instead of being run by a bunch of morons constantly being overrun by other revolutionary morons.

[Volbet]

Another point against Incompetence: Malevolence is harder to get out of power/destroy. Incompetence is blind and easily surmountable. 

Huh. I thought it'd be more interesting than a clear cut choice. Oh well. Dumb thread by me.

If we take this a step further it might just get intersting and not dumb at all. This post might just end up being a ramble, I don't know yet. (And i will still be talking about governments in this post)

 

I'll start with asking: What do we mean with ´malevolence´?

1. Do we mean that the government is just evil, as in it knows what's morally right, but chooses to do the opposite. Because then i don't think we have an example in world history of that. most government were good to atleast a group of people.
2. Do we mean something in the vein of a corpocratic government, that will exploit the majority of people, but create a great society for the elite?
3. Do we mean an orwellian big brother society, where the state as taking all our individual freedoms in the name of safety? But this big brother society is also exploited to a massive degree to keep the powerfull in power. 
4. Do we mean a stalinist Russia, where we do what is better for society as a whole, but at the cost of the individuals?
5. Is it a combination of the above?

When we begin to define our words, things begin to get intersting. 

I think our definition of ´malevolence´ can tell us a lot of our individual political stance and our personal moral beliefs. (Note: You don't have to pick one of my examples. I probably left out quite a bit, and the one I gave don't exclude one another)

What the problem with my first two posts was, that i defaulted to option number 1, but that don't give a very satisfying nor varied answer. Neither does it really make for an intersting debate. 

 

But if we then begin to observe ´incompetence´. Here we can't really have a debate about the meaning of the word, but we can have one about the consequences of an incompetent government.

The fundemantal roll of a government is to have the monopoly on external and internal violence, I.E. the military and the police. So let's just start there.

If the government is not capable of having a military, it might not be all that bad, since other countries might not be interested in invading us.

However failing to keep the monopoly on internal violence can be disastrous. In the worst case scenario it could lead to a unlawfull anachistic society. This would create a situation where individuals would prey on other individuals, and groups on groups. Think Thomas Hobbes' State of nature. Safety would never be insured. 

 

Of course this depends on what the government is ´incompetent´ at. My example does take the extreme route, in asserting that the government is incomepetent as a whole. 

It could be that governmet was "just" incompetent at building an infrastructure or providing some sort of social safty net. These would be as bad, but would probably still suck.

 

In my mind, even a malevolent regime is preferable over an anarchistic state, where no laws rule. Even if I didn't have freedom, I would atleast have safety. 

So, i might just want to change my vote from incompetent to malevolent, but I'll await some responses.

 

What i guess is that this could expand into a discussion about the nature of the state, the nature of morality and "whence cometh evil?".

[Tech_Dreamer]

the term "EVIL" quoting a person or a subject quite often depends on your source, ask a kid what is good , veggies or sweets , ofcourse he's gonna say what his mom taught him to say& those who say what they feel like it (what his friends thought).. two different sources , very different perspectives, think about it..