Grrl Power #1049 - Proposing better worlds (Patreon)

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I came up with Deus's comment that "Evil always has the advantage of being more proactive" as I wrote this page and I think it's probably true, because I think there's a limit to how proactive 'good' can be. I don't think 'evil' has a limit, really. All of the tortures Deus mentions are utterly horrific - the Blood Eagle, where someone skins your back, then cuts away all the muscles, then breaks your ribs and pulls your lungs out so you suffocate while in bowel evacuating agony is by far the kindest one on that list. (Crucifixion doesn't sound that bad, but it takes days to die from it. I imagine the Blood Eagle could be drawn out to some degree, but... look, torture is bad, m'kay?) The Holocaust, all the shit Japan did to China during and before WWII, even just 90% of what happens during any war. There's no limit. Actual demons have probably never invaded Earth cause there's nothing left to teach us.

But for 'good?' You can lock your door at night, making it slightly harder for someone to rob you. If we assume they try your door, then immediately give up and go home, then you've proactively prevented 1 unit of bad. It doesn't increase the units of good, but arguably, preventing an increase in bad is, in itself, good. Chances are the burglar doesn't stop at the first locked door, so they go to your neighbor's house and find an unlocked window and rob them. So you start a neighborhood watch. That's proactive. But it's a big neighborhood and you only have 12 volunteers and the robberies continue unabated. So you buckle down and eventually figure out who it is, but you don't have proof and the cops can't get a warrant to check out his house so you... confront him? Break into his house and try and steal back everything he stole? Break his hands with a hammer? Set his house on fire? Kill him?

Obviously most of those are wild overreactions, but for the sake of brevity, you can imagine an escalation that leads to a level of proactivity that crosses the line from 'good' to 'not so good.' But that's my point, I think good has limits. Preventative medical checkups are good. The world of GATTACA? Probably not great? Especially as it was presented segregating humans into the GATTACAs and the GATTACAn'ts.

'Good,' in my opinion, also requires more work. If you want to walk across the hall to another apartment and beat up your neighbor, that's pretty straightforward. If you want to prevent your neighbors from beating each other up, you're stuck patrolling your entire apartment complex/neighborhood.

I think a lot of supervillains can be categorized as individuals who cross the line into proactive goodness. Ecoterrorists like Poison Ivy or Sam Jackson's character from Kingsman. Humans are killing the Earth so kill a significant percentage of the humans. Problem solved. Humans have proven time and again they can't govern themselves without descending into corruption and abuse, therefore I will govern them whether they want me to or not. Problem solved. Etc.

Of course, while some behaviors are pretty clearly good or evil, there's a mass of complexity in between. If you really want to prevent that guy from robbing his neighbors, you could achieve that by eliminating desire. Arguably bad. You could also eliminate or at least minimize poverty. That's almost definitely good as the majority of crime is in some ways motivated by poverty. But then what are we really talking about, communism? And how do you prevent the pigs from being more equal than everyone else, leading immediately back to haves and have nots. Maybe you eliminate scarcity. That's... probably good? Right? But that involves an overhaul of economics entirely, as well as tech and resources we don't have yet. Who knows what new problems could arise from such a dramatic paradigm shift?

Ultimately, Deus's point is that super powers are likely going to magnify humanity's... humanity. Sitting back and hoping the world won't become a lot worse is negligent.

On a serious note, "Curse words based on female genitalia" would be the bluest of blue chip stock ever.