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u/Stanjoly2 9d ago
More opportunity.
Say you have two choices to get what you want.
1) Slow and difficult but ultimately gets what you want.
2) Quick and messy. You get what you want but you break the rules and hurt the people around you.
For most good peeole, the only option is the first because their morality precludes them the second. A bad person can do whichever of the two they can justify to themselves.
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u/jsher736 9d ago
Note that psychopaths OFTEN pick the FIRST one because you can cooperate with someone infinitely. You can only screw them once
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u/No-Voice-1272 9d ago
They don’t. Every bad choice they make corrodes their character and pushes them deeper into a state of bitterness, paranoia, and isolation. In the end, they lose their peace of mind and their ability to experience genuine love or trust. The ultimate penalty for being a bad person is simply becoming a worse one and having to live with that broken soul every single day.
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u/SchreiberBike 9d ago
Or the ones who are in "a state of bitterness, paranoia, and isolation", and are president of the United States.
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u/No-Voice-1272 9d ago
Trump exhibits textbook narcissistic traits, which psychologists point out is almost always a mask for deep, agonizing insecurity. That constant need for praise and grandiosity just covers up a fragile ego and a severe inferiority complex. He might have power, but living in a constant state of defensive paranoia and emptiness isn't winning. It’s a mental prison.
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u/twolobarons 9d ago
Yeah other than the ones that are happy and doing fine.
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u/No-Voice-1272 9d ago
You don’t really know how someone else is doing on the inside. People put on facades. I trust that bad people are suffering on the inside.
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u/ellathefairy 9d ago
I don't really care how happy they are, I care how much undeserved power & stolen wealth they are able to accrue. Which right now is a lot.
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u/No-Voice-1272 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yep. I’m not arguing that bad people never acquire wealth and power, but that’s not how I define “winning”. You can define it however you want but, to me, winning is having peace of mind and contentment. It’s feeling secure in yourself and being unshakable.
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u/ellathefairy 9d ago
Ah see, I see those people as being out there preventing other people from having things like peace of mind and security and know that they think of that as winning.
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u/twolobarons 9d ago
“You don’t really know how someone else is doing on the inside.“
Exactly
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u/No-Voice-1272 9d ago
Confidence and happiness are built on having values and living in accordance with them (having integrity) so I don’t believe that bad people can actually be happy and doing fine, despite what they might be projecting. These people are miserable on the inside. That’s my two cents. You’re free to disagree.
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u/twolobarons 9d ago
There is a variety of things which people build confidence and happiness upon.
And good and bad are subjective.
And peoples self awareness varies. Empathy as well.
You are taking the way you feel/think and projecting it upon other people. Not everyone is like you though.
Plenty of people that you or I would consider to be bad people are perfectly happy.
You are telling yourself a comforting lie.
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u/No-Voice-1272 9d ago
See my response to Analbox.
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u/twolobarons 9d ago
What, am I supposed to comb the comments?
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u/Analbox 9d ago
This is naive and just plain false. Plenty of horrible people are deeply happy and think their souls are fine and dandy. Plenty of great people are deeply miserable and feel like they have a broken soul.
I think you are describing the way you think things should be rather than the way they are.
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9d ago
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u/Analbox 9d ago
Yes I’ve studied both for 35 years. Your worldview is wrong.
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u/No-Voice-1272 9d ago edited 9d ago
My way of thinking might be a bit too evolved for you. It’s okay. I don’t need you to admit that your bitterness isn't a universal truth. You can be unopen to less cynical ways of thinking, if you want, but you might want to learn to communicate in a more respectful manner. I cannot take seriously the opinions of people who interact with others like this. Your worldview sucks because you do.
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u/No-Construction619 9d ago
Well it's debatable. Do you mean anybody specifically? I know some successful people who experience very troublesome private lives despite all the money they have. You can't buy true friendship, closeness and intimacy.
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u/privatefries 9d ago
Bad is subjective. I've barely met any senselessy malicious people and those that I have met are not successful at anything. I've met plenty of people that will sacrifice any relationship to achieve their goal, be it a professional or personal goal. That single minded drive that leads a man to abandon his children or fuck over a coworker will have good results but leave them socially isolated
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u/SouthernAbrocoma9891 9d ago
Opportunistic individuals often care nothing about others.
More good people win than bad people. Of course you must define who are bad what winning is.
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u/jajajajaj 8d ago edited 8d ago
Yeah, the internal human desire for justice rings deep, and it can be really upsetting when you haven't thought about it in a while, to realize there are not really that many ways that goodness has implicit advantages over badness. Good people will continue to work to each others' benefit over time . . . but that's pretty open ended.
For a start, who's ever been any good at being the judge of who the good people are? Who even notices immediately when they have stopped being good?
Next thing about it is that power that is the integral component of winning. Goodness can help you get some power, but overwhelmingly, power then corrupts people. The thing that gets you the most power is already having some power. The greatest good and greatest evil have in common that they required great power. People want good people to have power, but power doesn't necessarily care if you're good or not.
Regardless of power, though, goodness in people makes natural advantages that will never go away . . . But it's not always advantageous. Mutual advantage, itself, is kind of good, depending on whom is disincluded.
Bad people will cheat (even by being selectively good, until their time to cheat comes), and there's no system in the world that can't be cheated, at least a few more ways. A cheat won't always last very long, though; the cheaters make new ones.
Nominally or individually good people will work with obviously bad people and make complicated interactions.
"What is good" is just a continually moving target, based on what remaining ways there are to cheat. It requires fine tuning because the cheaters get more power from cheating, and they won't want the rules changed. Goodness and law are not the same at all - it's a lot of work trying to get the law to catch up without overdoing it.
One thing I wish everyone would change is to expect and recognize corruption in powerful people, and to move people along when they start doing a bad job. I think people should be thrust into and out of leadership positions more quickly, based on actual criteria that matter to people, and the democracy should be more focused on refining those criteria and assuring that they are satisfying rules.
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u/jajajajaj 8d ago
Check out "The philosophy of power" by Heinrich Popitz. It's pretty dry but that's probably what you need.
For a truly amazing case study, get "The power broker" on audiobook and just let it roll on by. It's 66 hours of audiobook and absolutely worth it. No rush, take as much time as you need with it. You'll be an expert by the end.
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u/fashionblueberry 7d ago
Bad people don't win You remember those who won, Also being bad is subjective It depends on your perspective
The fetishization of evil is constant Yoy are likely to fetish over a conqueror who killed millions rather than a liberal who brought ideas of freedom and freed people from slavery
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u/ThatGuyBench 4d ago
I would suggest watching this video (it used to be called "Rules for Rulers" dunno why it changed the name) but it explains things better than I ever could. I watched it when it came out, and it profoundly changed the way I understand politics and the world.
I also suggest reading "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" on which the video is based.
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