Lauren WeinsteinFeb 3, 2025
One of the reasons why Evil so often triumphs over Good, is that Good argues endlessly about whether or not its members are "sufficiently good", while Evil gleefully accepts all applicants.
Show threadferricoxideFeb 4, 2025
@lauren

Even that aside, evil is able to take shortcuts, good can't.

Trump & co can do all sorts of illegal things, but, to roll them back, you have to go through legal processes. Even if the courts aren't corrupt and do the right thing, the process takes time. During that time, the damage is done and isn't quickly undone (if ever).
Show threadRed_Shirt_no2Feb 4, 2025

@lauren @ferricoxide
I think this is like the “tolerant people must tolerate intolerant people” conundrum: If tolerance is a “virtue”, then the virtuous must tolerate the sinners; but if tolerance is a “social contract”, then the intolerant broke the contract, and the contract no longer binds the tolerant.

If “rule of law” is a virtue, then we must rely on the legal process. But if it’s a social contract…

Show threadPassengerFeb 4, 2025

@Red_Shirt_no2 @lauren @ferricoxide

Even so, I think the point holds. There are many examples of a revolution replacing a bad ruler with another bad one, because people were so busy hating the old guy they didn't look too closely at what the new guy was like. Your mind probably went to an example already.

Show threadPassenger

@Red_Shirt_no2 @lauren @ferricoxide

Also, evil doesn't accept all applicants; when evil people get into power there's usually a prolonged period of knifefighting between them which makes Leftist infighting look tame.

Imagine you're an airline CEO who backed Trump because you thought he was going to be corrupt and anti-environmentalist in a way that'd make you more money. Now, fuckin' oops, your planes can't safely take off because there's no ATC and so your ticket sales are down badly.

Imagine you're that US Latino guy who campaigned for Trump and then got illegally deported to Mexico.

Evil is currently purging people from its payroll who didn't make the cut. I'm not going to lie, there's a certain amount of schadenfreude here.

Feb 4, 2025 at 1:11amWeb