The genesis of evil

 The Earth is dying. Or so it would seem. The seas are rising. The forests are dying. Species are going extinct. It seems like we are bringing a whole great armageddon upon the planet. Then there are the deniers. The doubters and the skeptics. We laugh at them. How could it not be real. The end of the world. The scientists say it. Of course, it has to be true, doesn't it?

 As a species humanity has often bent towards delusion to do what it felt was necessary. When the Romans rained hell over Gaul and Iberia (Modern day France and Spain) they were 'unifying the Mediterranean'. What they were really doing was digging for mines. Searching for gold. Until they ran out and needed more. But their citizens truly believed they were doing good. That the people they were subjugating were barbarians. Unclean people in need of civilization. When the British sailed across the seas and conquered a quarter of the world they were doing the same thing. They convinced themselves they were 'educating the natives'. The argument had merits. But even the minorly observant viewer could tell that they were looting them. That this was no benevolent venture. It was as self-centred as could be. For better or worse. And yet they needed the illusion. Man is rarely evil at his core. It is few that truly enjoy causing pain to people. And fewer still with have the gumption to do it at scale. And yet the acts were committed. The slaves were carried across the Atlantic in chains and starving. It is fascinating to consider the logic that drives these people. I know no one personally that would support such an act. No one generally believes they themselves would do it. Even if we assume that some people support the act today it would be a safe assumption that a majority of people would be horrified by it. And yet, for millennia slaves were bought, sold and exchanged across the world. And without much opposition. It seems difficult to understand. Because it leaves us with very few options to consider. Either the generations before us were somehow evil or they were right. If we are to assume that slavery is evil then you have to consider that those people were somehow evil. And that's difficult to accept. Looking across history we see patterns repeating. Faced with similar circumstances people react in simple manners across generations. And with good reason. We haven't changed much genetically across the centuries. (It's too short a time frame for evolution) So what gives? What makes us so different from those that walked the earth merely 300 years ago?

 The answer it seems is choice. We are different from our predecessors because it suits us. Throughout history, slaves have been bought and sold because they were the most efficient item of labor. Simply put a slave was cheaper than a worker. Don't believe me? Julius Caesar of Rome gained much of his political influence on the promise of labour reforms. The problem he claimed to fix? The Italian people were jobless because all the jobs in Italy were taken by slaves imported from Roman conquests. (Sounds familiar?) This was a real problem. The slaves were so much cheaper that landowners bought large masses of land and used slave labour to till the land. It was efficient. And very profitable. Slavery was simply better for the rich. And this remained true for centuries as human progress continued to chug on sluggishly. And then came the machines. Until the Industrial Era, it was cheaper to hire slaves to get jobs done. But then the mills and other factories made slave labour seem inefficient. With jobs not available it actually for a while was cheaper to hire a worker than a slave. This is why slavery did not gain strength in Britain. It was cheaper to pay some chap a few pieces than to feed, clothe and shelter an African slave all the way in Britain. And so suddenly, it seemed, we woke up. Slavery went from passe to evil to downright devilish. And only where it was economically less viable. The American civil war was fought between states where slavery was big business and states where it wasn't. It is easy to hate something when you no longer gain from it. Now you still seem to disagree, don't you? Those people earlier were evil, you say. They had to be. They supported slavery! You can't just convince yourself of something. You can't just tell yourself slavery is good, can you?

 Then again you'd be surprised at what a person can convince themselves off. It is a great talent of man to believe what he wishes to believe. Don't believe me? (See what I did there?)  What if I told you that in 20 years it is very probable that the people of the future will look back at us and shake their heads. How could we eat animals? They will say. How barbaric that is! I have no doubt for that matter that someday people will consider meat-eating an atrocity. And this coming from a fairly regular non vegetarian. Let us consider this scenario. If you have been observing the news it seems synthetic meats are being considered a very real possibility. Something of a potential future technology. Let us assume as a thought exercise that such a meat were to be invented. Now let us think about what happens. Over the course of time such a meat (If it is cheaper) will replace natural meat. Now as a person who eats synthetic meat you look at a documentary about the brutal methods that chickens were bred in the 'dark times'. And you consider this question. Why did the people of the past consume meat? And the answer comes to you. As clear as day. The taste. We ate chicken because it was tasty. It wasn't cheaper or easier to produce. I was simply tastier. We brutalised and massacred a variety of species of animals for the sake of our taste buds. We think nothing of it. Rationalise it even. An argument claims that more insects are killed in the field while harvesting crops than chickens murdered for our food. We can all agree that that is a foolish argument. (See what I did there?) The reason it is a foolish argument is because we are attacking something that's causing us harm. They attack our food supply. More importantly, there is no torture involved. We are not imprisoning, breeding and genetically modifying them to our benefit. Now there are other arguments that can be made. But not ones that people know of. People don't know that plants can show emotions, for example. But people still eat chicken. The truth is we don't care. We do what we want to do. Whatever we believe works out best for us. And then we rationalize it. The slave owners weren't 'educating the black man'. But it gave them some peace to think that they were. Because the other option of doing the less brutal thing was less beneficial and often not acceptable economically. And the same applies to us. There will always be greenies and civil rights activists. But the majority of mankind will always do what is best for it. People will not buy hybrids and electric cars until they are cheaper and better than gasoline cars.

Edit:
Let us put aside the animals for a moment. It is implied by some that they are inferior species, not possessing the same rights as humans. It is an argument with some merit. Fascinatingly similar to the case against the blacks, but I digress. Let's make this apples to oranges comparison into an apples to apples comparison. Let's shift our attention to our favorite punching bag and enemy number one, Adolf Hitler. Now it is clear that his acts against the Jews were awful. Comparable quite easily to slavery. It is easy to assume that any all support of these acts was fanatical. That all his supporters were psychopathic killers like Heinrich Himmler and the like. But then you have a population of nearly 80 million people. These people actively supported him. They didn't just bend to his subjugation. They rejoiced for it. Hitler ruled with unprecedented approvals even while he massacred and otherwise undermined the jews. These people were not hypnotised. So why then did they support something so obviously evil. Even if we are to assume that the worst of it was hidden, pulling people out of their homes and packing them in trains was not exactly a promising sign. I don't think you think you would support that. But don't you see? This is a large sample space of 80 million people. It is a social experiment of unprecedented scale and consequences and no one is reading the results. Because we do not like them. The reason they allowed it was because it worked for them. A post World War One Germany had risen from the ruins. The economy was booming. The trains ran on time. And contrary to popular belief in the right direction too. (The cargo was questionable.) The point is that as long as the system worked for the majority they chose to overlook any problems with it. They chose to believe that the jews were evil, vile vermin in need of extermination. They believed that because it worked for them. They could still be good people in their own eyes. The jews were only vermin after all. Not too different from the black 'animals' of Africa. That's how propaganda works. It tells us what we want to believe. It feeds a narrative. The moment the narrative ceased to be productive though, the illusion collapsed. The jews were no longer vermin because believing that they were was no longer profitable. The Germans choose to ignore the period of time. Assume it to be some form of anomaly. It is no anomaly, though. It is human nature. It shows up again and again. Whether it is with the Spartan Helots or the Roman invasions. Or perhaps the Americans wars and our constant obsession with the 'evil' Russians and the North Koreans.

      At this point, it seems that the people of the past were probably not evil. (If we assume we are not evil) Or at least not any different to us. We do the same things. Maybe not quite as bad. Definitely for that matter not quite as bad. But that is simply a privilege of modern technology. Heck, I'm not judging. I love meat. I eat it fairly regularly. But the ethical question is often hard to answer. I mean we use animals to test out our cosmetics. There's no real case here. But I know more than a few people that enjoy the cheap makeup. And so we return to our primary question. Were people of the past more evil than us? Not quite, it would seem. They don't seem to have been right either. So what were they? What makes all this work? And the answer to that is delusion. Mankind is delusional. At a large scale that is. We build our own reality where all that we do is right and good. Where the majority is never wrong. Are we good people because we want to believe we do no harm or are we evil people for doing all the crazy harm that we actually do? Do intentions trump (lol)(forgive me) action? Who knows. And to be honest... who cares? The parade will continue. As it always does. We will judge our predecessors. Our future will judge us. And so on. And so forth. Washington will remain a hero. And so will Martin Luther King. People will as always live life as they always have. The same people. Different circumstances.

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