Since I’m personally connected, I don’t want to use superlatives. But yes.

While that is true, I think that many of the most successful at building a following are true believers. Hitler is a pretty good example.

I think Mao or Pol Pot also started out quite idealistic and then we’re warped by power.

I suppose it’s very difficult to really say one way or the other, and I would argue that true evil is only possible when the intent is purely self serving.

Even with sociopathy, they may genuinely think they are doing good without feeling empathy for those they harm. However, it’s a very good point that many of those that rise are sociopaths or become sociopathic.

I think that where we are today, it’s more important than ever to really recognise that there is absolutely no “evilest” person. And moreso, almost all of them genuinely believed they were being a force for good.

The main reason for there being no “evilest” is because there are not just tens, or hundreds, but thousands of people who have committed horrific atrocities which even as individual acts would be in contention for the evilest.

Just within the Holocaust, you have so many individuals perpetrating such evil. The croatian fascist groups always stick out in my memory for the raw personal brutality.

However, there are so many comparable situations throughout history that we know very little about. Sacking of cities, mass rapes, Jeffrey fucking epstein, what’s been happening in Sudan, what happened in Ethiopia a few years ago, the Holocaust, the Mongols, the ottomans, the British empire, south American dictators, the Japanese empire, the russian empire, the soviet union, al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, the IRA, the Vikings, and on, and on, and on.

Yes, arguments can be made about how much more evil things are when they are organised etc. However, in my mind, organisation is just a tool that we have improved. We need to be hyper vigilant that anyone, at any time can end up being so radicalised that they are willing to perpetrate evil. Including ourselves. We are not really different from these evil humans.

Henry Kissinger is up there as quite a villain of modern times. Puppet master of most of the fucked up modern world order.

Ottomans were quite vile as well. My grandmother grew up watching ottoman soldiers slicing open pregnant women’s bellies because they were Greek and laughing.

Pol pot is definitely up there.

I have limited dev experience, but most Devs at my company utilise AI heavily for generic code generation.

For example, writing out the core functionality, and then having the AI propagate variables, error flags etc.

I like your point that it really should be a “Copilot”. (Although ew MSoft.)

I think it’s important to continue to experiment with new tools as they improve, and try to use them responsibly.

AI always produces extremely generic, slightly verbose phrases though. So it’s important to generate in small enough chunks that you can use the structure it creates and then add the specificity and accuracy for your purpose. And cut out the waste.

Umami baby

There is a very big difference between having restrictive laws which enable society to operate more freely, laws which have significant protections in place to prevent misuse, and laws which impede freedoms.

As well as the implementation of said laws by governments.

It’s certainly not a new thing, but the status quo has shifted drastically in the past 5 years especially.

For example, the laws which are being used to quell protest have been around for 20 years and longer, it’s just that last year was the first time they have been abused in that way. (As critics of, for example the terror act, suggested it would be)

My point isn’t that it’s the first time the UK has seen authoritarian skews in government. Churchill set the troops on the miners, Thatcher used secret police against the unions. The point is that the paradigm is shifting back to that, and eroding what has been slowly and painfully won.

I’m quite curious on this as well. Lived in Bloem from 2011-2013, everyone loves going on about how bad ZA is (“white genocide”…). Would love to hear from real folk there if it’s all hogwash or if there is some grain of truth

Unfortunately we are living in times where even the most sane countries are getting to the point where completely reasonable things may be seen as illegal, or used against you, in the future.

It’s not unreasonable to imagine that insurance companies/banks may soon (if not already) buy your internet traffic to get a profile of you. If that profile matches some risk factors, higher interest rates or premiums could be a thing.

Even the UK has started flexing authoritarian lately with the Palestine action proscription and suppression of protest. There is certainly a trend in modern politics to try to track people online, and they are starting with pornography to normalise it, using CSAM as an excuse to enact more extreme legislation.

Immigration and border authorities are also beginning to expand digital backgrounds for travellers or immigrants.

It’s not necessarily about what is illegal today, in your current location, but it’s about what might be considered illegal or “bad” in the future and weaponised against you.

Don’t assume that your current situation will always be the case. The right to privacy is not for people to do illegal things, the right to privacy is to protect you against authoritarian governments if/when they may intersect with your life.