The common version of the phrase…

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

The actual version of the phrase…

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

Unpopular opinion, but in the west particularly, folk have mistaken writing on the internet for action.

Tweeting resistance rather than performing it.

A lapse into inaction framed as radical rest and self care.

Online they are fierce warriors of justice, offline they go to work in Starbucks, use their apple devices to talk to their families and enjoy the treadmill of streaming services.

And this isn’t to blame them. This is the point of consumerist capitalism. To trap you in a gilded cage.

I saw on Mastodon someone say something kinda like this: good people don’t feel the need to dominate others.

Evil isn’t “winning” as much as it is “on top.” If you look around, talk to your neighbours and such, you’ll see that good and reasonable people are everywhere; good is the overwhelming majority.

That being said, positions of power are chased and coveted by those obsessed with power, and those aren’t good people. Good people need to take charge, but it’s — in a way — against their nature to do so.

Because the return of massive wealth disparity - similar to having kings again - has allowed those with money and power to bend the world in the direction of some form of dictatorship, whether it be fascism, oligarchy, whatever…. The New Kings are carving up society and want to increase control and profit, and an authoritarian governance is the way to do it. Just like how they treat their corporations. They are dictators, the little people are disposable production units to feed their machine.

1. Rampant unchecked capitalism of recent decades has created large wealth disparities akin to the earlier decades of the last century. It is no longer possible for one person in a household with a regular job to support a modest lifestyle for their family. All benefits especially medical for the whole family, being completely intertwined with the current job reduces mobility and further feeds into the wealth gap by keeping wages low. It’s easier to blame the powerless for this state of affairs than the powerful because the powerless cannot object.
2. The fear of the other has been accentuated by media and misinformation. Targeted algorithms feeding most of the information that is consumed has created echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs and fears. The propaganda state has never had it easier.
3. The large military and police has given never before control to the state about what is allowed to be protested. Combined with the day to day struggles, it’s extremely hard to come together for what is right. The ruling class is able to maintain the fine balance between absolute misery and general dissatisfaction that it is still better to struggle through a thankless job than to say fuck it. Failures of recent large uprisings like Middle East and Hong Kong have reinforced the futility of standing up against the rulers.
4. Evil has many heads and there’s always one head that you can find alignment with. It could be the deregulation of businesses, lower taxes, anti abortion, racism, but as long as there’s one thing you can align on, the general sense of powerlessness makes it easier to overlook the other heads.
5. The line between evil and good has never been murkier, especially with globalization. If you focus on the betterment of your community, it would be considered good, but what if it leads to suffering of others outside the community. Is it also evil? What is community - is it the people in your neighborhood, your religion, your country, fellow business owners? The fuzzier these lines are, the harder it is to untangle them.

We need more violent good guys

Because good natured people don’t want conflict so they avoid it.

Bad natured people actively seek conflict and engage with it whenever possible.

Evil never sleeps. Peace does.

Have you ever cheated at a game, cut corners on work or purposefully did something unfair to get better from it yourself?

Yeah it’s much easier to win without any pesky ethics or a strong moral compass.

Good folks have been struggling uphill since the Ancient Greeks as long as there are folks trying to win with a different rule book.

Capitalism is dying because of unchecked greed and people are turning to socialism. The wealthy choose fascism. Until we have class unity. Once we bring out the guillotines, They will retreat to spending the rest of their lives in the bunkers they have built with their stolen wealth.

People are scared and angry and want action without thinking about the long-term gains only the short term. Creating fear is fascism 101 and how many rise to power

Because now it is affecting you personally. Before it was in the middle east or some random aftican nation where people dont speak english, and media make sure it is not in the front page. Reading some history of any conflict will show the root starting a while back but no one cares.

I think the issue in America, is that the Constitution only addressed political power, but failed to account for fiscal strength. Money is inherently a thing that manipulates the fates of individuals, companies, and nations alike. By not setting down rules, limitations, and expectations regarding economics, the Founding Fathers allowed a key form of power go unaddressed.

The vast majority of Project 2025’s major backers are wealthy people, who have far beyond what any normal person can ever hope to possess. This imbalance means that workers have to sacrifice much time, money, and energy to be barely heard on a single issue, while a rich person can just hire experts to massage every aspect of their many messages and to deliver it everywhere with a mighty voice.

IMO, we will need a Constitution v2.0 that fixes not only assorted political flaws like the voting system, but also prevents wealth from being a microphone that only a few can afford.

The internet. It led to the following:

• Good social change occurred very rapidly from the 1990s-2010s, causing highly motivated pushback from those who didn’t like the changes
• Rising wealth inequality caused by tech billionaires increased incentives and capability for a small number of extremely wealthy people to seize control of media and political power centers
• Foreign dictator governments became more able to more easily spread pro-dictator propaganda
• Media became more decentralized, leading to some good things but also the hijacking of our psychology to spread fear and disgust for the sake of grabbing attention

My opinion on this generally boils down to that the system has been set up to reward evil/antisocial behavior, and this part of the system is so entrenched and well established and organized that it has not been effectively and completely toppled or eradicated in so long, it has been able to consolidate power and resources to a point where very few extremely evil people are personally in charge of so much of what happens that it seeps into everything. Actually “seeps” is the wrong word, it’s injected into everything. It’s like has been said many times in recent memory, the cruelty is the point.

For a simplified example, evil executives reward evil behavior by their managers, who in turn punish their employees, who lose control of so much of their lives to these companies and managers that they end up hurting their families and friends out of confusion and anger and other complex emotional reactions, and harm is perpetuated in every area of life.

It’s self sustaining, and even worse it replicates itself. In some ways I think of these systems as viruses. Also as cults. We all buy in to some degree.

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.