Oh, I know. That was sarcasm.
Forgot the 
You sound completely normal to me in this regard. Nothing remotely evil about you.
Welcome to the SDMB. I am the OP and this thread has nothing to do with religion.
I don’t mean to imply that everyone is a Stalin type just to mix it up a little for historical accuracy. Everyone has a little evil in them. That doesn’t mean that you are going to be cast in any new versions of the Wizard of Oz soon but it still there. The question is what is it exactly?
The point is to just to do some introspection and find out where your own version of evil is no matter how small. We don’t need to hear about serial killings or Mexican drug cartels. It is much more mundane than that. The point is where you think you fall short as a person based on your thoughts and personality. It takes lots of maturity and introspection to do that so only the best and brightest will be able to make a meaningful contribution. We already have some with more to come but this thread isn’t for everyone.
Save the positive posts for Facebook and Instagram. This the anti version of that. Tell us why you are a bad person.
What? No, that is not why I don’t do horrible things to other people! I don’t do horrible things to other people because they would be hurt. That’s like the type of religious person who thinks that all atheists want to run around and murder people.
Never in my life have I thought “well I’d really like to murder that person but I’d have to go to jail and I really don’t want to do that so I guess I won’t murder them”. :smack:
Lots of people do. You have probably never had your beloved German Shepherd shot and killed for wandering. My neighbor killed her for no reason, I see no reason to kill him right back other than the legal ramifications. The person that shot her was a piece of shit anyway. I cared way more about Katie than him.
Like or not, that is the way most of human history has worked. The only reason things hold together as well as they do now is because of social systems, legal systems and prisons. If those break down, it will go straight back into anarchy because human nature doesn’t change that quickly.
Please note that I have zero felonies or misdemeanors on my record. The current system is a pretty effective deterrent.
As an aside, my former babysitter was caught poisoning my best friend’s hound dogs with steaks laced with rat poison. The dogs died and the uproar was so bad that he had to get a divorce, leave the state and be treated as a pariah forever. He should have gone to prison but the exile status is probably enough. He has plenty of people that will shoot him on sight if he ever shows up again and nobody will report it.
You don’t just kill people’s dogs or bully their kids and not expect a disproportionate response. I would greatly prefer if people didn’t do that type of thing at all but you have to make it hurt really badly if it happens.
I do have a beloved German Shepherd. If someone shot and killed her I can imagine the blinding rage I would feel and yes, probably, there would be thoughts of wanting to shoot them back. I will admit that.
Sounds like the beginning of a country song “they shot my daaawg, now they’re gonna get it between the eeeeys”.
I still think that I’m not evil.
This isn’t about pure evil. It is just about about a little evil. Almost everyone has some of it in them. The trick is to recognize what that is and then write a successful country song about what kind of a screw-up you are. Everyone that claims that they aren’t is lying to themselves.
You specifically said entertainment.
“Originally Posted by Shagnasty View Post
Usually revenge but entertainment ranks up there too among other things. …”
I am a good man, who does nothing.
There are times when I find myself pondering revenge against people who have wronged me, or thinking of how satisfying it would be, kind of like Shagnasty, but I have also found that typically, revenge in real life, is much less satisfying than the imagining of it is.
Sorta funny you would make that last two sentences on a forum called Straight Dope.
Which I always thought meant…you know…objective and true and skeptical of mythos or groundless claims.
As is yours that we are all evil.
That claim should be saved for a theological forum. Since evil is not a scientific, biological, psychological, or anthropological term. Which are all the straight dope science disciplines that pertains to the human condition.
And you have not yet given your definition of evil. To me it sounds as if you equate evil with simply performing actions or even harboring thoughts and ideas that might lie outside accepted societal moral and ethical norms?
Which is, I hate to say, not a valid definition. At least not by most standards. And certainly not by psychological paradigms.
I’ll be waiting for your def, mate.
Cheers.
No, I truly have no desire to physically harm anyone. I have absolutely had people do horrible things to me and to my loved ones, and of course I have been blindingly angry at times. But never once in my life have I wanted to hurt or kill anyone. I find it a little disturbing that you assume all normal people feel the way you do.
Of course I’m not perfect, but I don’t believe that “lack of perfection” equals “evil”. I try to be a good person, do the right thing, avoid hurting anyone, and help when I can. Sometimes I screw up, but when I do I try to make it right. I assumed all normal people felt that way, so I guess we are both expanding our egocentric perspectives.
My ideal revenge fantasy, by the way, almost always centres around the person coming to the realization that whatever they did to cause me harm was wrong, and feeling really bad about it. Which isn’t nice of me, but that’s what I would find far, far more satisfying than violence against them.
Again, I find these ideas to not only have absolutely nothing to do with how I think, but also to be really disturbing. It is the same level of shock as if I were sitting in a bar and a guy was casually telling me that he wished to rape a meter maid because she had his car towed the other day.
Towing a car is **nothing **like killing a man’s dog.
I’m using that as an example of another notion that is totally shocking to me. Frankly, I have no idea how many would relish the murder of the killer of their beloved pet. Maybe it is 10% of the population, maybe it is 50%, maybe 95%. But I am telling you it is NOT 100%.
Would you be totally shocked by someone fantasizing about murdering the killer of a family member?
Ravenman, what are you trying to convey here? You keep saying that you are “totally shocked” that anyone would want to murder someone who had just killed their beloved pet for no reason. What is your point exactly? That you are uniquely serene, calm, and less prone to the more “base” or “uncivilized” emotions that other people have?
I’m still confused about how the OP turned this from evil (like Hitler and Stalin) to negative thoughts then to negative traits. Seems like a lot of moving the goal posts to me.
Have I done mean things to someone? Yup. Have I regretted it? Yup? Did I apologize? When I could. But does that mean it was evil or I was evil? Heck no.
Do you even know what evil means, Shagnasty?
I may or may not continue to read this thread–as I’m afraid that since the enemies of Shagnasty die horrible deaths that I may suffer the same. Not that I’m an enemy, but because I simply disagree.
And yes–people are flawed. But a bad thought or bad deed doesn’t equate into evil.
If I was out of line I apologize to members and the mods. I’m new here and I hope my post followed the rules. I was not personally attacking or anything (or hope not).
I’m not saying anything in this thread out of a sense of superiority, which you seem to be insinuating. I’m saying that there’s a huge difference in my opinion in being extremely angry and wanting justice and being in rage and and hoping for the murder of someone.
To answer your specific question, what I am trying to convey is that I have zero empathy for thinking about the murder of someone under those sorts of scenarios (not specifically related to someone who killed a pet, but a general situation of a very serious wrong being carried out by a terrible person). I’m saying that the OP’s idea that everyone thinks like that is incorrect. I’m not sure why you are taking such great offense at this fact.
I first realized that my capacity for evil was much greater than I’d previously know when I suddenly found myself in a nearly psychotic state of murderous rage and totally obsessed with beating a man to death. Lucky for both of us he managed to get away.