On 'Stupid', 'Evil', and Things in Between

1. On 'Stupid'

Technically, stupid means:

“Having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense.”

To me,

Stupid ≠ low cognitive processing power,

Stupid = a refusal to use the processing power available.

Perhaps a better definition is:

Stupid = the willful avoidance of moral or cognitive recursion.

- Have access to better cognition, but choose not to use it

- Ignore contradiction even when it’s pointed out

- Lack curiosity, nuance, or recursive thought

- Default to tribalism, slogans, and binary thinking

- Repeat harmful behaviors while refusing reflection

Meaning:

Trait Description

Anti-recursive Refuses to loop on their own thoughts or beliefs

Qualia-flattened Can’t hold emotional complexity, reacts with instinct only

Meme-locked Lives inside inherited engrams, never questions them

Context-impervious Doesn’t adjust based on nuance or situation

Ethically inert Doesn’t feel the weight of their choices unless personally affected

And what I'm meaning to say is:

“You could have been more — thought more, felt more, questioned more — and you chose not to.”

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2. On 'Evil'

Classical Definitions:

- Theological (Augustine): Evil is the absence of good — a privation, like shadow is to light.

- Moral (Kant): Evil is acting against the moral law you recognize as binding for all.

- Utilitarian (Mill): Evil is that which causes unnecessary suffering.

- Nietzschean: Evil is a social construct invented to condemn strength, will, difference.

- Hannah Arendt: Evil is banal — the unthinking obedience that enables cruelty.

Generally Accepted Patterns (at least 2 of the following):

- Deliberate intent to cause harm 

- Awareness of the harm 

- Lack of remorse or positive change 

- Glorification or justification of harm 

But if 'Evil' is:

- Engrams 

- Salience 

- Moral recursion 

- Structural consequence 

- Breath vs. stone 

Then,

Evil is action (or inaction) that causes significant, avoidable harm while bypassing moral recursion. 

Evil is not just the harm itself.

It is harm enacted without reflection, or with deliberate suppression of recursive awareness.

The Components of 'Evil' 1.:

Component Description

Harm Physical, psychological, social, or existential damage

Avoidable The harm was not necessary for survival or bound by coercion

Ignorance ≠ Innocence If moral recursion was possible but refused, ignorance does not absolve

Intent Optional Evil can be intentional (Himmler), negligent (Eichmann), 

                                                or structural (Stalin)

Recursion Failure The defining feature — evil arises when an agent refuses or disables 

                                                moral feedback

Four Species of 'Evil':

Type Description                     Example

Recursive Suppression Consciously avoids reflection    Eichmann, tech CEOs optimizing harm

Ideological Absolutism Overweights certain moral         Pol Pot, ISIS

                                                engrams at the cost of others

Systemic Evil Created by design or inertia,      Stalin, caste systems

                                                harm is baked into the structure

Callous Ignorance Knows better but won’t look      Climate denial, performative allyship

                                                — “soft evil”

Why This Matters

Evil isn’t rare.

Evil is what happens when the loop breaks — in governments, in families, in ourselves.

That’s why recursion is the defense. 

Not moralism. Not doctrine. Not certainty.

But courageous re-entrance into contradiction.

Moral Postures of Harm:

1. I cause harm and don’t care 

- Intent: Deliberate

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Indifferent

- Moral Pattern: Sociopathic

→ This is sociopathic or indifferent harm. The person is aware but feels no guilt, and continues without remorse.

⇒ Evil (sociopathic evil)

2. I cause harm and feel guilt 

- Intent: Mixed

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Internal conflict

- Moral Pattern: Stuck loop

→ This triggers internal conflict. The person is aware of the harm and emotionally affected, but may or may not change.

⇒ Not evil, ethically stalled

3. I cause harm and don’t realize

- Intent: Inadvertent

- Awareness: Unaware

- Response: No change

- Moral Pattern: Unconscious harm

→ Unconscious harm. There’s no reflection because the person isn’t aware that damage occurred.

⇒ Not evil, problematic

4. I cause harm and justify it 

- Intent: Deliberate

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Reframe as good

- Moral Pattern: Ideological evil

→ Ideological or self-righteous harm. The person reframes the harm as necessary, deserved, or even good.

⇒ Evil (ideologically evil)

5. I cause harm and don’t do it again 

- Intent: Any

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Change behavior

- Moral Pattern: Ethical recursion

→ Reflection succeeded. The person learned from the experience and changed their behavior — a healthy moral recursion.

⇒ Not evil, lacks moral agency

6. I cause harm, apologize, but do it again 

- Intent: Any

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Performative remorse

- Moral Pattern: Loop mimicry

→ Performative remorse. Words signal guilt, but there’s no real behavioral change.

⇒ Evil (performative evil)

7. I cause harm and blame others 

- Intent: Any

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Displace responsibility

- Moral Pattern: Moral deflection

→ Moral deflection. Instead of accepting responsibility, the person externalizes blame — a defense mechanism or manipulation.

⇒ Evil (deflective evil)

8. I cause harm and deny it ever happened 

- Intent: Any

- Awareness: Semi-aware

- Response: Suppress or erase

- Moral Pattern: Engram editing (malicious)

→ Suppressive or delusional behavior. This includes gaslighting or self-deception to erase guilt or avoid accountability.

⇒ Evil (suppressive evil)

9. I cause harm and convert it into virtue 

- Intent: Deliberate

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Glorify harm

- Moral Pattern: Total inversion

→ Total moral inversion. The harm is glorified, even celebrated, as strength, justice, or necessity. Common in authoritarian propaganda.

⇒ Evil (inverted evil)

10. I cause harm and am broken by it

- Intent: Any

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Overwhelmed remorse

- Moral Pattern: Moral collapse

→ The person is overwhelmed by guilt, shame, or grief. There’s awareness, but no clear recovery path — moral collapse.

⇒ Not evil

11. I cause harm and am paralyzed, unsure what to do

- Intent: Any

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Stuck in salience fog

- Moral Pattern: Moral fog

→ Moral fog. The person realizes harm happened but doesn’t know how to respond. Often seen in sensitive or trauma-affected individuals.

⇒ Not evil

12. I cause harm and learn a broader truth from it 

- Intent: Any

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Transcend immediate case

- Moral Pattern: Moral growth

→ The harm becomes a gateway to greater wisdom or ethical understanding. The experience transcends the specific incident.

⇒ Not evil

13. I try not to harm, fail, and rebuild more slowly 

- Intent: Non-intentional

- Awareness: Aware

- Response: Iterate carefully

- Moral Pattern: Working conscious

→ The person learns iteratively. They re-engage the moral loop slowly, with increased awareness and compassion.

⇒ Not evil

Revised Definition of Evil:

Evil is harm inflicted or enabled with awareness and either indifference, justification, or pride — and without corrective recursion.

It is not just what happened, but how it was metabolized — internally and culturally.

The Components of 'Evil' 2.:

1. Harm — something real is damaged: bodies, minds, dignity, lives, trust.

2. Agency — someone chose or allowed it; there was capacity to do otherwise.

3. Moral failure — the actor either:

    - Lacked the ability to care,

    - Refused to reflect,

    - Justified the harm,

    - Or glorified it.

Revised, Revised Definition of Evil:

Evil is the willing infliction or justification of harm through a collapse, suppression, or corruption of moral awareness.

Revised, Revised, Revised Definition of Evil:

Evil is the conscious or unconscious suppression, absence, or inversion of shared moral engrams that ordinarily inhibit or contextualize harm — such that the harm becomes unmoored from the moral salience that should have stopped it, and unreconcilable to others who still feel that salience.

Evil is not just about what you did.

It’s about:

- What you should have felt and didn’t.

- What you overrode and why.

- What you justified, and whether that justification can be mirrored or felt by another moral being.

So, evil = harm + engram failure (in self) + engram irreconcilability (in others).