Musings on Evil

[gfish]

So, I'm in Denver on a bioterrorism related business trip. And I've been hanging out with xmurf and randomdreams a lot.

Conversation eventually turned to various evil ways to abuse the things we know. Duh.

But it got me thinking. Some very evil things seem pretty easy to do, yet they've never actually been done. Why? Are they harder to do than they seem? Are people not actually as evil as I think? Or is there some reason that people capable of really evil acts are just not competant?

Comments

[xiadyn.livejournal.com]

Maybe the way brains work makes it difficult to be both evil and effective at the same time, the same way that most serial killers thwart themselves?

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Obvixyanswer: People are not as evil as you think.

:)

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I think it's mostly that people are lazy, and *many* people who are drawn to crime do so because their job skills aren't cutting it elsewhere. (If you've ever read about the incompetence of many Mafia hits, you know what I'm talking about here.)

But, really, it's a lot easier to hijack a plane than to, say, build a cyclotron.