When you hear someone say "Don't be evil" did they define evil?
The "Don't be evil" was Google's original motto and it was something they applied to themselves. I don't know if they ever defined evil. I am going to give my own personal definition of evil in this post, and I'm also going to analyze the "Don't be evil" concept and how if not vigilant it can change to a slide into evil.
First before we get started. This post will not be based on any religious interpretation of evil. I do not affiliate with any religion and if you must label me as something other than an individual when it comes to spiritual and religious like beliefs then the closest label that fits me is what is known as a Deist [1| 2 | 3].
My concepts of evil do not require a Heaven vs Hell, Satan vs God, or any other dichotomy couched in the realm of man's religion. With this said I do think that my interpretation of evil will likely still work for those of you that are religious, with the exception of those religions which fail the very simple test of what I personally believe separates good from evil.
What is evil?
In my mind evil is a very simple thing. It is failure to understand the only mind I should ever control is my own, and the only person I should ever control is myself.
My mind is the only mind I can truly hear the thoughts of. My mind is the only mind of which I have the true ability to change.
So what about evil?
Evil occurs when a person decides they have the right to control other people and their minds.
I am not speaking of convincing people by discussion. Discussion and debate still leave the choice as a voluntary choice of people on how they want to change themselves and their mind.
Another way this could be stated is that evil also has another suitable synonym for its manifestation in my mind.
Involuntary
If a person must use force to make another person speak, not speak, or act in a certain way then that is not voluntary.
If a person resorts to silencing the speech of another, prohibiting their speech, or otherwise compelling them to speak only in certain ways that is involuntary. That is evil.
If you personally believe someone is misinformed then in a non-evil world you would speak and give them the opportunity to hear your words. You would also listen and hear their words. Neither side should ever expect capitulation and instant agreement, for while it can happen. That is very rare. Instead your words and their words actually work a lot like seeds in your mind. If you truly listened and there was something valuable to them then they may take root, and eventually change minds. How that mind is changed is not under your control. Nor should it be, as that is evil.
They may take some of what you said and incorporate it into their own world view, beliefs, understandings, etc. Other things you said they may still disagree with, but their mind was changed none the less by the encounter with you. They may not even remember you, and be able to credit you for this change. Yet we should not worry about CREDIT for changing minds. Instead we should try to be reasonable and offer ideas that might change minds, while also listening so our own minds can be changed and grow as well.
None of this can happen without free speech.
Some of the earliest signs that evil is raising its slimy head is when people start banning speech, banning/protesting speakers, and refusing to engage in any civil discussion with certain people.
Without words exchanged neither the people refusing to engage or their target can be convinced or have their mind changed.
Historically when words are no longer permitted the inevitable path that it proceeds to is death. Without a way to discuss, compromise, and together reach a mutual understanding then eventually one side will begin to indicate that they feel justified in killing a segment of the population. They may frame it as genocide. They may frame it as saving the world from evil people, yet they will fail to see as they speak of evil that it is they who are justifying murder simply because they are unwilling to have a discussion with certain people.
They've made up their mind. They utterly believe there is no way possible these people they want silenced could change their minds.
When your mind can no longer be changed, you lose the ability to learn.
They will also never convince the people they would eliminate, because they are unwilling to speak with them. Without speech there is no changing of minds.
If your chosen way of "fighting", "resisting", "protecting", or whatever other label you choose to give it is to prohibit and stop people from speaking then you have given in to evil.
The person may be a better speaker than you. You may feel like they are mentally tying you into knots. So rather than face that you'll just attempt to make it so they cannot even speak. This is the easy path.
I have a clue for you. When presented with many paths. The easiest ones often lead to evil. Challenge and difficulty should not discourage you, because when you have walked such paths you will be tempered and come out the other side stronger. The same can not be said for continually choosing the easy paths.
Who is remembered for doing something easy?
Often you will have to speak with people that have better verbal skills than you. This does not mean you cannot change their mind. It simply means it may be far more difficult and you may have to take some mental bruises in the process. The good news is these experiences will strengthen your own abilities. Also if your ideas are based on reason, evidence, and fact then it doesn't matter how skilled the person your speaking to is in comparison to you, you will have planted seeds in their mind.
If you don't have facts, reasons, and evidence beyond simple emotions and "belief" then there is a very good chance you are wrong about something. Silencing people because you don't want to be wrong is EVIL.
We are all wrong very often, and far more often than most people like to admit. Being wrong can be uncomfortable. Yet recognizing you are wrong and being willing to listen opens the door to learning. You can begin to learn so many things once you are willing to admit that being wrong is okay.
Here is another clue for you. There is no godlike human out there that has the perfect mind. WE ALL ARE WRONG about things. All of our minds should be in a constant state of change as we hear new things, see new things, and learn new things. It should never be rigid and static and so certain that "I know the answers" because, the truth of that statement is actually that "I MIGHT know SOME answers". There should always be a possibility of being wrong, as well as the understanding it is impossible for us to know everything. In fact, the more you learn the more you begin to realize just how much you don't know. There are an infinite amount of questions, and an infinite amount of answers.
Life is an adventure, the good and the bad. Most adventures are pretty boring without some bad. We revel in overcoming challenges and surpassing bad periods in our life. So if our answer is to remove anyone that would challenge our beliefs wouldn't that also amount to killing the adventure?
Google (many of us have recently started calling Goolag due to their actions) is an excellent example of how easy it can be to slide into evil.
"Don't be evil" was a good motto when Google applied it to themselves. The only minds and actions we truly control are our own.
The danger arises when you step onto the slippery slope where you suddenly believe you can make other people not be evil too.
It changes from telling yourself not to be evil which is voluntary, to a belief you should stop what you subjectively believe is evil in other people which is involuntary.
That simple change from "Don't be evil" applied to yourself to "stop evil" applied to others destroyed your idea of "Don't be evil" for the moment you feel the right to force, restrict, and control the minds and actions of others you have taken that step onto the path of evil.
The only person you rightfully have the ability to control is yourself.
Everyone else you have the right to try to convince.
Lead by Example
This is where the term "Lead by example" comes in. If you truly believe you have it figured out and how you live your life is the correct way. Live it. Let other people see you live it. If they agree they will choose to adopt some of the things you do. This is completely voluntary and requires no force, and you do not need to force them by some RULE to do what you do. That would turn you into a ruler rather than a leader.
Leaders come and go organically for each situation and can occur completely voluntarily.
Rulers make the rules that force others and are the first sign of an involuntary situation.
Reality of Rules
Attempting to remove rules is not realistic, at least not yet. For a world to function completely involuntarily we would need to have a world where people had completely free minds, and had been taught critical thinking, and methodology to help them view the world in an unbiased way based upon facts, and evidence rather than pure emotional "gut feeling". A "gut feeling" in the mind of someone who doesn't know anything about what that feeling is trying to help them do will still have no luck regardless of their gut. A gut feeling (aka intuition) is only as valuable as the skills and experiences you have had to back up that intuition.
We have rules because the world is full of a lot of the evil as I described it. It is heavily in our education system. It is heavily in our propaganda outlets that masquerade as news agencies.
For a truly voluntary world to work the population would first need to know how to think for themselves, to ask questions, to be okay with being wrong, and to respect individuality.
The educational environments based upon the Prussian Education System[1 | 2 | 3 ] have actually been taking those abilities away. It seems intentional.
They have taught people to essentially stick their hands in their ears, throw tantrums in adult bodies, demand people they disagree with not be allowed to speak, label anything they don't want to hear as hate speech, and when all else fails chant and lob derogatory insults at anyone who gives challenge.
This puts up a wall through which speech cannot happen. Recall if you will where I said this inevitably leads. It historically has lead to mass deaths.
These same people that love using the label "hate speech" are the ones that gleefully will call for killing, punching, genocide, etc of those they disagree with. In other words they speak of hate speech when the only hate speech actually occurring is coming from their own mouths. They've been taught to do this.
You can see this when someone is raped, killed, or hurt and the response is something like "That's okay they were Republicans", "That's okay they were white", "That's okay they were Trump supporters", "That's okay they insulted islam", "That's okay they are NRA members", "That's okay they are Christians", "That's okay they are homophobes",
"That's okay they are idiots", "That's okay they are fascists", "That's okay they are Nazis", "That's okay they are Jews", "That's okay they are black", etc. You get the point I hope.
They believe evil acts are justified because they don't like the recipient of the evil act.
Yet they will moan and scream and rage over something that isn't even close to rape, killing, or being physically harmed if it is targeted at them.
In fact they'll say that is now justification to rape, kill, or harm the person that said something to or about them they didn't want to hear.
Think about it.
Hate Speech.
Evil.
Where are they?
If you think you have the right to control other people then they are inside of you. It truly is that simple. Focus on what you can control in yourself rather than seeking to control others. Lead by example.
Good ideas do not require force.
To The Religious
Have you considered this might be a big part of why "free will" exists?
If you exercise choice and you make it for yourself and not others then you stay on a "good" path.
Once you start forcing other people and removing their "choice" then you are walking the evil path.
It is rather simple.
Embrace voluntaryism [ 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 ].
Boogle has always been evil. It is now, that their mask has really slipped.
The subconscious does not hear no. So, what happens when you see Boogles motto? You are programmed each time
Do Be Evil
They were designed, developed and funded to control the narrative.
There problem is, when everyone can talk to everyone else, lies will quickly be exposed. And so, their shadowbanning became apparent. Their duplicity in statements became apparent.
I think inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It's a constant struggle as to which one will win. And one cannot exist without the other.
Is Google evil ?
In it's current incarnation Google is very much evil.
They are completely anti-free speech.
Do some simple searches on Google, and then search on a bunch of other search engines and you'll see a vast CENSORED difference.
Parkland Shooting 3 shooters is a good example as written about and demonstrated by @johnvibes.
Google Caught Red-Handed Censoring Search Results Asking Questions About Parkland Shooting
Or just read what James Damore actually wrote trying to help Google when he worked there and loved Google... that got him fired, and a ton of hate mail internally.
Yet read the actual document or watch him speak and it paints a very different picture.
Thank you for saying this, providing examples, and with luck, opened some eyes to the threat that Goolag poses to many unwitting people. Use duck duck go I say, whenever we can.
After studying history for half my life (something I stopped doing as it made me incredibly sad) I am of the belief that most people insist on being led and will ignore the vilest of actions if their experts say it is good. To say I am wary of my neighbors and their representatives would be an understatement.
I appreciate that you have a strong moral compass that seeks to allow others to be themselves, and even more strength to say aloud this is what you would have. To the majority the proclamation you made is tantamount to making you an evil nazi trying to stop progress. I laugh cynically as I type that last part, the majority of people seeming to no longer care of words having a set meaning.
Finding a post such as this is a bright spot as the older I get the more I expect most people to suck and insist on being ignorant as they demand my compliance with their experts. Thank you for putting these words out here.
Some will not listen and will take it like you said. Yet even if I plant a seed in only one person, that makes it worth it. It is the only thing I personally have come up with I can do sort of us actually going to physical war.
Well, I cannot agree more.
I am a religious person (well i have my christian beliefs), and the concept of evil it's pretty much what you said.
About the expression free will; we call it agency(i prefer agency than will, and we take the word free out, i'll explain why): act with accountability and responsibility for our actions.
We cannot compel anyone to do something because we would take their agency; the right to make decisions by themselves. Now, that agency or will is not entirely free. It is subject to the consequences or our decisions. We cannot choose something and always control the outcome. So it's not entirely free.
But yes, it's evil to control anyone but ourselves.
Good post!
Free will doesn't eliminate the concept of consequences and responsibility. :)
Yet in pretty much dichotomy based religion humans have the ability to CHOOSE to be evil. They are also responsible for the consequences of such.
Some religious people I've asked them if God gave man free will then why are some people so arrogant that they believe they can take free will away from people?
EDIT: and if you follow those three links I have next to the word Deist. It will explain the closest thing to what I am. I do believe there is some catalyst event, call it a creator, a god, etc.
I simply do not believe what people write in books around that as those seem far too simplistic for what my observations show me. Often they are completely silly.
As a deist, it basically is "there is a creator"... now observe and use reason.
The closest thing to a bible for a deist is the things they see as they observe the world whether it is in discovering amazing things in Fractals, or the repetition of the Golden Mean, etc.
We don't then speculate and tell people what that means. We will speculate, but we recognize we are speculating.
That's basically it.
Yeah I know, but there's lots of people that think otherwise, so I prefer to take the agency approach.
And of course, I can't force you to believe like I do. Everyone has the right to make their choices without any judgement if it doesn't harm others or yourself. That's a mistake every religion has.
Wow, can't believe I almost missed this inside the voting period. This is an absolutely fantastic rendition and distillation of the essence of Voluntaryism. Unfortunately, as you noted, the education system is not conducive to training children and young adults to actually use their minds to lift everyone up. But that is a topic of its own. I am deeply honored that you included links to my Towards Voluntaryism in education series, thank you! Resteemed!
Curated for #informationwar (by @truthforce)
Relevance: Embrace Voluntaryism! And Be Good!
Our Purpose
To me people cannot be evil. Objects cannot be either.
Actions or inaction are evil or good. If you fail to act to defend an innocent person's life, that is an evil act. If you act to defend a innocent person's life, that is a good act. Evil is something that people do or do not do. It is either an unethical action or unethical inaction.
You have sex with someone without their consent? That's evil. You take someone's property without their consent? That's evil. There is no evil and good by themselves. A person has to either do something or not do something depending on the circumstances.