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How evil are we??

I Sperg

I think I'd like to moot a potentially shocking social experiment here, after seeking the approval of the mods, and after some of the intellectual and moral heavyweights that frequent these pages have weighed in, of course. 

I'd like to pose the question, for anyone who cares to answer, "what is the worst thing you have ever done?"

And by creating a short term identity here, with a published password allow people to reply in complete anonymity...

Now, the very real danger is that, as happened to me once when I asked a new acquaintance that very question is that someone will confess a murder!*

But, I doubt it very much. I suspect that like my own "worst ever" act, you guys will turn out to be mostly pretty harmless.

But I don't know, it's only a hypothesis, need more data...

How safe for the participants would it really be?

Well we have some I.T expertise on this site as well as my own "dawn of the internet" experience, and I think we will all agree that unless this site logs ALL of it's traffic, it won't be traceable back to you, by any but the most complicated and forensic analysis conceive-able, and a simple murder probably won't even justify the resources need to investigate.

(You'd need to have stolen a lot of money or blown up a masonic lodge probably...)  

Bad idea, or fascinating opportunity?

EDIT: Thank you all for making this such an interesting and illuminating thread.

The size of the response was unexpected, and I've not had the capacity to respond to all comments that perhaps I would want to. I keep having to get up and do stuff.

  • I've done some bad bad things, I'm not going to disclose what. But it's bad enough for me to contemplate suicide because my conscience won't let me forget it. 

  • Isperg.  The 3 brawny fellas that used electrodes connecting my soft flesh to the array of car batteries and capacitors never got anything out of me, so what makes you think I would confess my secrets in open forum by you exercising soft power and slight of hand?

    If evil is the opposite to love, then I am capable of shades of evil by that definition.  Moreover, I have proven myself capable of many curious feats and behaviours in my time....so I suspect that I have Gru-level propensities to 1950's-style cartoon evil - from time to time.

    Number (Cruncher)

  • See, this is a very tough question for me!

    Legally speaking, I've done crimes, but those crimes were downloading music and underage drinking. Could be worse, right?

    Morally speaking, the worst thing I've done is being mean to people on purpose. So relatively speaking, I'm probably not particularly evil.

    But by some other people's moral codes, I'm REALLY evil- I like heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons, I'm queer, I support trans rights, I'm a woman who works and doesn't want children. And I'm a leftie. All those things are horrifying to a lot of people. So it's pretty subjective, I suppose, even though I would disagree that any of those things really do make me evil.

  • I feel like the experiment you described is doomed to failure, as you ask though to say what is the worst thing they have done, but a truly evil person is very unlikely to acknowledge wrong doing in there actions, they will not feel guilt or regret about them. So what we’re then asking people to do is what is the worst thing they’ve done with respect to general societies views, which we can probably agree arn’t always right and are subject to change.

    On a personal note, I do often feel like the villain, but that’s more me personally assigning blame to myself in far too many situations then me actually being evil, I think.

  • Problem is you wouldn't find much true evil on this forum, and I've had it done to me so I know what it looks like. The other thing is there is no real anonymity online, so if someone did share anything illegal it would go to the authorities.

  • A really interesting question, thanks. So my first thoughts ..

    I know that I pretty much lack a moral compass and that obeying laws and rules is something I mostly only do because of fear of being caught and punished, it’s a case there of weighing benefits and disbenefits. 

    I do not subscribe to moral absolutes nor any particular system which defines right and wrong, to me these things are relative and changabke in space-time, so for example much as I appreciate that some of my parent’s values and behaviours in the 60s were damaging to me and definitely believed by many today to be wrong the world was entire different then with a different set of values and truths 

    I don’t go along with organised religion but have done in the past and was very much brought up with Christian values imposed, it didn’t translate to me following any of that though 

    Ive learnt not to apologise for things I would do the same again, or which are very much core parts of my identity too

    and the worst thing I ever did ? There’s a few possibilities I could post which I’ll reflect on

  • * one of three people who in my life have seen fit to confess that very crime (two were very much unasked!) to my face.

    WHY??

    Why didn't they keep it to themselves and save me so much learning about how to really make the right decisions about serious stuff...

    If you learn, as I unpleasantly have had to, about the nature of evil from M.Scott pecks book "people of the lie" and other sources (particularly psychologists who have the courage to "go there") which back up his findings very consistently in my experience, you'll find that Evil likes to "grandstand". 

    Some people won't like me saying it, but a Christian upbringing and a seemingly functional connection to my creator, was really helpful to me when making the requisite judgment calls about how to handle these people and process the (to me) horrible things I learned from them, and their situations.

    The trans people are RIGHT about wanting to limit human hatred, it takes us to horrible places.

    I've been annoyed a lot in my life, I'm prone to it, and occasionally expressing it too, but I quit "hatred" a while ago.

    I may oppose you, I may get annoyed at your antics, I might find you dull in your thinking, or grievously mistaken or simply wrong. I've even seen some people on this site show "evil intent", (which is quickly squashed to be fair, one of the reasons I think I can ask this question here, and that the data is useful to us as a community) but I won't lower myself to hating you.

    It'd be like hating myself, and I did that for a long time, and it was pointless MADNESS.

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