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jubilant-barter t1_jcg6qv4 wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in People with dark personality traits are better in finding novel ways to cause damage or harm others: Study reveals that people with more pronounced dark personality traits tend to have more malevolent creativity by DreamingForYouAlways

Well, you know some people often say: evil is stupid.

The idea is that cruelty is the retreat of uncreative, mean, simple people. But, if that isn't true, that's pretty terrifying.

Competent malevolence is a horrifying idea.

But generally, y'all. Stop treating scientific studies with results that we think as "obvious" as if they're not valuable. Testing our assumptions is important.

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mrlolloran t1_jcgl9v8 wrote

That’s not what the study implies. It is specifically about creativity. Dumb people can be evil, they will just be amongst the followers or at least they will not be amongst their “thought leaders”

Edit: it’s also about personality, not intelligence

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jdragun2 t1_jcjd8qy wrote

It's both. Dumb psychopaths end up in prison pretty young or are horrible at attaining their goals. I agree that they are probably really prone to following a smart or powerful psychopath with similar ideals however.

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jdragun2 t1_jcjd5gy wrote

Evil is not stupid. It's short sighted. Competent malevolence makes up probably about half of all people with an excess of dark triad traits. I agree people need to stop treating these studies as not valuable.

As a psychopath who works daily on not acting on the dark triad thoughts and ideas that make up 2/3 of all my waking thoughts is a never ending battle that has pushed me to be suicidal in the past, multiple times. I made a few attempts when I was younger that ended in horrible non life threatening pain.

Studies like these give some hope or understanding for and of people like myself who knows what we are, don't like it, but have to fight harder than a professional athlete to not give into the thoughts and plans we invariably concoct whether we want to or not.

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cashibonite t1_jci33dz wrote

Oh it's the reasons I love villains like lex Luthor. cunning and calculating. Harma and azula from avatar also fit this bill and pretty much all the villains from the legend of Korra. varak being the best one played everyone like a fiddle and people only noticed when he stopped playing because he no longer needed to. Most people don't like the legend of Korra. But the one thing they did well was the cunning villains.

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Boaki t1_jci2389 wrote

disagree. would much rather be up against competent malevolence. that's the guy that feels compelled to tell you his master plan while you're tied up, giving you a chance to get away.

the incompetent one ends up murdering all your loved ones while intending only to papercut you.

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jubilant-barter t1_jci5sy0 wrote

This would be very funny in a subreddit about fiction or memes.

But when we're talking about scientific research into harmful behaviors, we shouldn't let storytelling genre conventions color our expectations.

They're not meant to reflect reality, they're just there to entertain.

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BasileusBasil t1_jcj3vag wrote

Competent malevolence might explain its plan, but in an Ozymandias way of doing it. They might explain their reasons and how they pulled it off, but only when everything it's set in motion and nothing can prevent it anymore.

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FwibbFwibb t1_jcj8ix2 wrote

> that's the guy that feels compelled to tell you his master plan while you're tied up, giving you a chance to get away.

You watch too many movies.

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jdragun2 t1_jcjdk2w wrote

Sir, that is the incompetent ones. The competent ones won't say a thing until it's over and they have no chance of taking a penalty or hit. The. They will hint at their own involvement to those close to the victim or the victim themselves without ever giving enough to prove a thing.

A competent malevolent being doesn't care for gloating until the deed is done. Long monologues in front of a hero aren't really a thing. Especially not as often as Hollywood would have you believe. An anonymous letter to the hero's family or group that explains how they died without saying who did it in vague ways that implicates tons of OTHER people, including the same family or group: that is the sign of a malevolent being who is competent and intelligent.

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