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HD7970GHZ
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Default Feb 05, 2020 at 03:47 AM
  #1
Hi Community,

Question for you all,

"Do good people do bad things in order to make the world a better place?"

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Default Feb 05, 2020 at 04:15 AM
  #2
How to bad things make the world a better place? Can you give an example?

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Default Feb 05, 2020 at 05:38 AM
  #3
Yes, I don't know the full answer to that, but it reminds me of this saying:

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Something to ponder.
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Default Feb 05, 2020 at 05:41 AM
  #4
Quote:
Originally Posted by TishaBuv View Post
How to bad things make the world a better place? Can you give an example?
If the person doing the bad thing thinks it's a good thing, and that it will make the world a better place. Like the Holocaust, for example. [May God rest their souls].
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Default Feb 05, 2020 at 07:06 AM
  #5
So philosophical -- I like it. I could talk about this for ages. But, I don't know if you can classify a good person doing bad things as a good person. Think about it -- I mean, if you define a person by what kind of actions they pursue, wouldn't someone who performs bad actions be a bad person?

Therefore, wouldn't it only be bad people who are doing bad actions and making the world a worse place?

Or can good people perform bad actions? I'm not saying that good people cannot make mistakes. Rather, I am arguing that if you're intentionally doing bad things, you're a bad person (not you personally -- just our hypothetical universe that I've created in this example).

I know good people can err and make mistakes that lead to bad consequences. However, that is not the same as intentionally doing bad things.

I do agree that on the spectrum of all things that are possible, bad things do cause there to be a balance between good and bad. It's the same argument as whether bad things counterbalance good things and vice versa.
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Default Feb 05, 2020 at 10:34 AM
  #6
You could probably argue it from many different angles but one example, to me, of good people doing bad things to attempt to make the world a better place is war. When it's felt that going to war is completely justified.

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Default Feb 05, 2020 at 07:13 PM
  #7
This sounds like the d and d concept of chaotic good. Ie Robin Hood, or more modern example the archivist who broke copyright to provide access to Coronavirus research to everyone, it illegal but could save lives.

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Default Feb 06, 2020 at 09:51 PM
  #8
Yes. You have to realize, though, the question itself about - 'Who is a good guy and, Who is a bad guy?' - relies on a great common thought, which is this: Everybody thinks they're the good guy. Everybody, right? But in reality, we all have the good and bad in us - that's the truth. Look at the German people during Fascist times [sorry, it's just a convenient example from the modern era] - ordinary Western people - who many, many of them made the Holocaust happen! - not all government people either, and not all military people - just ordinary people.

At the end of the day it makes you look at yourself with a magnifying glass of self honesty and ask: What evils are you facilitating? And what good things are you facilitating in the here and now? And do you even know the difference?

Just some thoughts.
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Default Feb 07, 2020 at 02:13 AM
  #9
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing," Edmund Burke.

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Default Feb 07, 2020 at 03:45 PM
  #10
I personally don't think so. I don't think bad things make the world a better place,except maybe something like a police officer or perhaps a civilian killing someone who tries to kill him or some such. Are you thinking of someone like Robin Hood, though?
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Default Feb 07, 2020 at 04:21 PM
  #11
It really depends on how you look at the "bad things". For example, soldiers go to war and kill the so-called "enemy", when needed. Almost all soldiers are likely good people at heart, but killing itself is not a good thing. Sometimes fighting in war is for a greater cause (i.e. to stop a psychopathic evil dictator that has only bad intentions and wants to hurt all good people, including their own), and yet most of the soldiers on the opposite side of these soldiers are likely mostly good people at heart, themselves. War is a very sad situation and so often totally unnecessary.

Sometimes its really all a matter of perspective. One could say that supporting a criminal leader is a horrible thing. It sort of is, but like the soldier analogy, the people supporting the criminal leader are not usually bad people at all. Sometimes they are ignorant, uneducated, brainwashed/misled, or have priorities in different places than others (are willing to do X bad to obtain Y that's really good -- at least in their perspective).
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Default Feb 08, 2020 at 04:43 AM
  #12
Sometimes so called good people berate children with with the hope of making them better people, making the world a better place.

Total sh** but that happens every day, unfortunately.
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Default Feb 08, 2020 at 06:31 PM
  #13
I consider myself a good person but I do things I know are kinda wrong but to restore balance. So if a guy lies to me, for example, I'll hold him accountable in whatever way possible. E.g. An ex of mine didnt properly dump me so I kept on as if we were still in a relationship until he went nuts and told me we aren't together anymore and I'm harassing him. I just said "that's funny because you never actually broke up with me". Things like that. Perhaps it's psychotic but if someone doesn't stick to their word, ill stick to it for them and that generally irks people. But maybe I just have trust issues and need help.

I just see it as holding people accountable but maybe I'm just super messed up. That's an extreme example.
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Default Feb 09, 2020 at 07:15 AM
  #14
I don't really believe in "good" or "bad." I think those are really just subjective opinions. Sometimes the opinions are given more weight because they come from a perceived authority figure, or because a lot of people seem to agree with them, but it doesn't really change that there isn't a good or bad at the end of the day. We evolved to protect ourselves, and we developed a sense of tribalism to that end since it's safer to rely on groups. That doesn't really mean that doing things that benefit your tribe is good, especially when whatever benefits your in-group harms an out-group that you then have to demonize and rationalize as "deserving" the harm. Any "good" you do is going to be somebody else's "bad." Even if you're a Humanist, you're still going to run into issues of priority. Is it better to save a medical doctor or a therapist with the antidote? Is it better to save a Conservative or a Liberal? A Pagan or an Atheist? Either way, you're letting the other one die, and that could be seen as "bad." So, yes. "Good" people have to do "bad" things in order to make the world conform to whatever ideology they deem as the "best" one. This is inescapable.
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Default Feb 16, 2020 at 07:23 AM
  #15
How does one define a good or bad person?

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Default Feb 16, 2020 at 11:49 PM
  #16
Fighting fire with fire is often times the only way to make change in this world. This means that sometimes those who are motivated to do something must also step outside of their own morality in order to make the world a better place.

Bad people are abusers. Good people are everyone else.


I assume everyone can agree that abuse is bad.


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