why is the modern world so evil? 

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last time i was this early sisyphus was still pushing his boulder

"There is no Good or Evil, there is only Balenciaga and those too weak to seek it." -Balencimort

i've always tried ever since i was a kid to bring love instead of hate to the ones around me. But with the passing of time and constant events and confrontations it's difficult not to despair when it looks like evil always triumphs. So it''s really meaningful to ear words, like James Baldwin at the end, to remember why i should keep moving and have empathy to my fellow Man.

I guess evil often comes from one's own weakness, a way to fill a void that one may never be able to fill by putting others down?

Due to John Immoral, CEO of Evil.

As long as the fear of death exists, evil people will be close behind.

What's so wild is that we- viewers of this video- could encounter each other out in the world without knowing it, and have a pointless exchange that leaves us both offended and hateful of each other. Watching this video doesn't change us, we're emotional creatures and quick to be pulled into moments of conflict. Maybe just try and be kind to just the next person who makes you angry, even if we're only mindful of it once before reverting and forgetting.

"You don't have enemies. The truth is, that nobody has them. Nobody in this entire world deserves to get hurt." - Thors Snorresson

The Prophet Muhammad Once Said - “If the son of Adam (Us Humans) were given a valley full of gold, he would love to have a second one; and if he were given the second one, he would love to have a third, for nothing fills the belly of Adam's son except dust.”.

Another fucking banger. All of the Becker stuff reminded me of the master slave section of the phenomenology of spirit. This othering of people as evil is the mechanism that allows for us to understand ourselves as good, or for Helgel, as simply being. I have also found this to be true in the version of christianity I was raised on: both the sinner and the false believer are what makes "us" holy through our recognition and condemnation of them. The only response to this dilemma must be love for the other; the other is the only way that I can feel myself to be good. The logical next step is to move beyond condemnation and towards a radical acceptance wherein both self and the other recognize each other with respect and move to create a world wherein we can both exist with security and peace.

my English class was talking about this topic. 'what does it mean to be human?' people treat animals less because they're not human, so why do we treat other humans less? they're human, but we sometimes label others as 'non-human' because of some evil things they do. humans just want excuses to make themselves better in life and in feeling

Someone asked Swami G: ‘why does evil exist?’, to which he replied: ‘To thicken the plot’.

I try to be as good as I can be (unselfish) but its a poor metaphor to say you should listen to the angel on your shoulder. Because like you said, the supposed devil is also part of your human being. So instead of beating myself up when I get there (usually for what therapists describe as H.A.L.T.; hungry angry lonely or tired) I accept that this another part of me, my weakness and I try to make amends through humility of my human condition with anyone I might lash out on. And when I am refreshed and healthy I extend that much kindness and patience to those who might act out in the same.

When I read his book (The Denial of Death) for the first time in 2020 during COVID, it was the most coherent theory of motivation I have ever read and I immediately dove into other related work (The Worm at The Core) and research that was done. And I highly resonated with the creation of art relieving underlying fear.

Thank you Sisyphus... "If your adversary wins the argument about truth, you die." ... Such is the frailty of ideas. But there are many spiritual paths which tell you can go beyond the mind, beyond ideas to a pure experience itself. I recommend looking up Steps to Knowledge, which feels like a very real pathway for this.

"I think this idea of fear being behind evil should only further encourage us to view love as the only true saviour." - Ben

In my book, evil is anything that threatens the finity of myself and others for personal gain. Those who opt to live at the expense of others when given the choice

Your writing and editing is just on another level, it's so nice stuff like this actually exist

sisyphus i recently discovered your channel around a month ago i was going through a breakup and your videos have just made it that much easier thank you. ❤

I don’t think people these days are any more evil - it’s just more on display / easy to see

I've been curious about the disturbing films iceberg lately. Having no strength in actually watching them, I decided to just read their plots on Wikipedia. It disgusted me. All of them. I kept thinking how humans can be this torturous, heartless, and downright evil. Then, somehow, Sisyphus dropped another video literally on the right time again

Wanting to live isn't the source of evil. Death and suffering is the evil, not our fear of it.

Fear leads to panic; panic leads to pain; pain leads to anger; anger leads to hate - Danny Nedelko by IDLES

Because I said so

Evil can never be prevented, but it can always be cured or accounted for. To commit to any kind of "final eradication" of it is a fool's errand. But to commit to engaging with it and gently assimilating it into our societal whole is where the true progress happens. It must be cared for, consciously and diligently, just like anything else. Then we may someday find the balance we so desperately crave.

excellent video. loved the baldwin at the end. liberation truly is at least in some way a liberation from fear!

"You should only know how much tyrants fear the people they oppress." - Albus Dumbledore

Great video, as per usual. Just had a thought while watching, though: do you think you could include the names of the major people that you are drawing from in the title of the video? That may not work for some of your videos where you draw upon a lot of thinkers, but for this one I think including Ernest Becker somewhere in the title could help draw in some people who are specifically looking for an interpretation of their work

"Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive....it's that part of an imbecile that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly.” ― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

This video is actually really helpful for me write now. I'm writing an essay about The Iliad and for my main thesis I said that "Achilles emerges as a champion of love" and I kinda forgot what I meant when I first wrote it, but now I remember. Thank you.

dont know if you read comments but I just want to say that often when you post these videos they genuinely make a positive impact on my life and the ay that I look at the world because I lack both the patience and time to read or explore the ideas of these thinkers myself. I really appreciate that you make these videos and I wish there were more channels making really well put together and comfy breakdowns of really interesting ideas like this in the way that you do. Thanks for making videos man I really appreciate your channel.

Yin and Yang, in my opinion We wouldn't know what good is without evil

The identification of the problem is meritorious, but not the application, (everything he said would apply equally to artists and intellectuals as much as billionaires), and the solution is utopian, (unrealistic projections of what would sufficiently motivate people in Becker's more ideal society, or the amount of civilization that would result).

Evil is what happens if the goals of two or more self-propagating Systems are in conflict with each other. This doesn’t even require intentionality, it is enough to exhibit a behavior with the tendency to produce certain outcomes. As long as there are living beings, there will be conflict, as long as there are living beings, there will be cooperation. conflict and cooperation are just two sides of the same coin. But one we judge that it ought not to exist and the other we judge that it ought to exist. We hate war but love peace. We hate exploitation but love sharing. We hate egoism but love altruism. We hate Hate but love Love. We have the tendency to avoid unnecessary conflict. As the cost of it is often higher then the potential benefits it brings to us. But in the end we are sometimes forced into it to protect or archive what is important to us. The point I am trying to make is not to embrace conflict but it is also not to see the devil in it. Instead it is simply another part of live. We should grow by having a sober and down to earth relation to it and not to be unhinged psychopaths or wannabe saints.

Note to self- when I die, remind myself that this is my life now.

so friendship was the real treasure AND it’s the answer?! HELLLLLL YEAHHHH

it is my hope this we are the last generations to suffer like we are That we've seen the worst of the worst and being so widely informed we will break the cycle of mistreat, at least for a single generation

If other humans and creatures are sentient and/or experience emotions like happiness and pain, purposefully causing others pain could be considered the definition of evil. I think the idea that we care about good and evil because it is a way of holding to something bigger than or that will last past our death is interesting. I think it is true to a large extent. I would at least like to think though that some people don’t want to hurt others because they care about others.

Evil is determined as that which is opposite to our preferences to live and avoidance of suffering. Without our preferences there would be no good and evil, only facts to which no value would be attached

Hmmm I think Becker didn't reach the actual depths of the problem. This video suffers from being based on (Becker's) shallow axioms. I think that fear of death doesn't get to the point. Scapegoating for example, isn't about being the hero and promoting ideas of immortality, as much as it is about avoiding self-reflection and admitting one's errors, that is : avoiding the effort of taking responsibility for oneself and for the world. Those aren't merely about avoiding death, rather they are based in a fear of suffering or "complexity", take for example the depressed person, who chooses death over the complexities of a painful life. Of course death is still a motivator, but summing it all up to death only is incomplete. And doesn't allow for more than an oddly moralistic yet unrooted stance. Depicting humans as only useless and vile creatures, and capitalism as nothing more than a naïve escape. Evil seems to me based more and suffering and resentment, than on death-anxiety.

I've been taught by every authority figure in my world since I was a child that I am evil, so insignificance is the greatest virtue I can possess and the greatest comfort I can seek. The sweet and inevitable embrace of death and oblivion is my perpetual safety blanket and snuggly, reassuring teddy bear.

It really is incredible to see the progress in your channels video production. Not only are your words filled with wisdom, but your visuals are so unique and enticing that it makes for a complete viewing experience. Keep up the great work :)

Ultimately suffering comes from desire and ignorance. Desire to be inmortal, to be a hero, to be bigger than life. Desire to success. And ignorance that if you just see life for what it is, every moment being a opportunity to experience a beautiful world, to love, to create, to learn and improve yourself, to have a virtuous life

This is one of your best videos! I've always found ethics and existentialism to be two very different branches of philosophy, but you clearly proved me wrong with this video! Kudos!

we probably abandoned Christ in preference for personal liberty and as consequence you're seeing the erosion of the boundaries between categories and thus mass confusion around identity. We have no idea how profoundly deep Christ and Christianity itself go into the nature of reality and the preconditions for a functioning prosperous society. And I am singling out Christianity because of all the religions it is the one that western civilization, one of the most prosperous enterprises of humanity so far, was founded on.

This made me think of that billionaire, Bryan Johnson, who is spending millions and millions of dollars to try to slow down/reverse his aging. He selfishly wastes so much money on a fruitless endeavor, yet he doesn't do that because he is evil, but because he is afraid.

“Evil is evil…Lesser, greater, middling, it’s all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit. I haven’t done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.” - Geralt of Rivia Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher: The Last Wish

That james baldwin quote really summed up everything. Love/empathy is the solution but the system and the fear and other distractions it produces prevent us from expressing that love, from seeing the humanity/ourselves in everyone else

I don't think it's so evil it just has better coverage than in the past . There's tremendous good that happens every day in the world but it is the evil that gets our attention it has a much better publicity agent .

We often act on our primitive wild momentary impulses and spend rest of the time regretting doing that, it would not seem like but it's very hard choosing *not to* that's why evil has always prevailed

Evil comes through evolution of intelligence

It's been a cruel world ever since evolution was kickstarted.

This is the philosopher's version of I'm 14 and this is deep. "Dude if you think about everything we do is like driven by our fear of death. Bro maybe if we all just loved each other there would be no more war".

There is an unspeakable amount of evil and t3rror going around in the world right now and people are turning a deaf ear and a blind eye😢😢😢

Ironic how you discredit Christianity for an extremely misinformed view of the Devil yet you use capitalism as your scapegoat. In Christianity, the enemy is not the orchestrator of evil, he is only the tempter. We are all responsible for our own actions. This is why we need Jesus. You mentioned that people seek death to justify their own eternity. This evil causing belief is shattered when you look at the figure of Christ. Our misguided ideas of eternity through mistreatment or killing of others is disproven by the resurrection of Christ. You may be thinking, but he died for our sins right? The idea of salvation through animal or human sacrifice ended with his resurrection. Christ is risen. Christ sacrificed himself completely in all aspects of his life for all people including you. For this, he had beaten death and rewarded with eternal life. It is our responsibility to follow in God’s footsteps and serve others to the best of our ability and to develop a relationship with God. See how this contradicts human nature and your ideas of the causes of evil? Perhaps I am a man simply attempting to defend his own salvation. But in my heart, I know that every red word is pure truth. It just speaks so well to my soul. Please know that I am still studying the Bible and I am far from an expert. But knowing God has changed my life and cured my depression. Please seek him out yourself. He will find you and pick you up if you allow him to. He loves you.

Monsters in our world don't have guilt

Oh yeah, and there is no misunderstanding. Life sucks. I hate people.

very western take...a lot of people have accepted death , it is definitely not something that is why people create evil it's more, it is instinct and our own greed

These people are real and they will rule the world, they already are

Robert Sapolsky is a great read in understanding the genetic & environmental factors that make us who we are.

It's through understanding your own darkness you find your light. So simply said, yet it is the hardest thing to do

I have always believed all evil stems from fear. I felt it was inherent. Glad do to see some legitamate support for my bias 😂. And likewise, love is understanding in action.

Why is this strict dichotomy "immortality or irrelevance" so prevalent? Literally, everything, including the Universe (as far as we know) is finite and changing, and yet we all regularly engage with it, find meaning in it, and in ourselves. Why is then that idea that "only immortal and everlasting non-changing things offer meaning" so fucking prevalent?! Another point I would like to note is that both religious ideas and capitalism (or any other idea of human society) are not objective entities or phenomena, but merely ideas made by some humans and forced onto other humans. In that sense, capitalism isn't an "immortality ritual", it's just some shit we need to do because the few in power depleted all our other options through violence. We don't need to mistify it beyond that, it is what it is. The "average person" didn't magically convert into a "pathetic consumer", nor did they stop being a creative being (most people have hobbies after all), the consumer part is pretty much a deliberate push by the few who seek everlasting profit and power - the average man has little-to-no say in that. It's like saying "Something happened to the walking, free-breathing man that converted him to a lowly creature inhaling water and struggling for breath" when you should be saying "Hey, those assholes pushed a man into a lake, someone help him!" I do agree with the final point about fear being the driver of evil, I would just go one step beyond and say that it is immaturity that drives things we see as evil - it is childish behavior to want to command others, or to be worshipped, or to just want some things to disappear because they frighten you. It mostly stems from having very bad role models in childhood, having no one to teach you how to develop emotionally - I know that from my own surroundings, I see people who call for harm upon various nationalities, yet they never stop to say "I am afraid", or even a simple non-egocentric mature greeting "How are you?". The are childishly self-absorbed, encouraging evil acts they see or hear about, refusing to let anyone near just because they were hurt at their most vulnerable moment in life.

Loan Shark : Bullies : Murderers : Manipulater : Cyberbully : Crime : Cybercrime : Doxxer : Dr4g dealers : Useless Kid aka Stubborn : Abusive parents : Polluted earth : Cancer : Hurt :

art and abilty to self-reflect is truly the greatest thing you can do as a human. It is a gift to us that can so unfortunately be easily manipulated by advertisements and media under the puppet strings of capitalism

Do you remember what it was like before you were born… You don’t… It’s OK to miss the rest of it then… Sleep peacefully friend ❤️‍🩹

We are and always have been the monsters that we fear...

Capitalism.

One word - KINDNESS : ) Stop teaching greed ! Instead teach KINDNESS : ) LOVE is GOD is LOVE !

I reject the initial loaded assumption that the modern world is evil of even worse than any time in antiquity, it has its problems but we live in the safest most prosperous time in history for the largest amount of people on the planet

Capitalism, its Capitalism

Thank you for this video. As always, eternally relevant, and thus always a hot topic! Love and courage are - sadly - hard to obtain. Love alone is not enough. Courage alone is not enough. Both must be there in equal proportions. Love - also - is hard to define and capture. Do you have an opinion on love? I found it incredibly hard to pin down since it's a broad term that is at times contradictory. I know you made a video on: "love without attachment", "how we think of love is messed up", and "How To Fall In Love" but I think the love you mentioned here is more far-reaching.

The idea that death is something to be feared is what seems to keep this all going. If we cannot accept that confronting others beliefs will inadvertently cause the death of some of our beliefs (thus a death of self) we become aggressive to any other “combative” formation. I think this stems from a bigger issue of believing that our personal semantics of our reality apply to the rest of the world rather than the other way around. So because we find identity in our semantics we leave room for opportunity to have more conflict in realms where it doesn’t suit us. The idea that my moral semantics is applicable to all situations involving others has caused me so much pain. I hated others for what they said and instead of taking them where they were, I played a fighting contest to be right. The reality of things is that me holding my identity to those beliefs is what prevented me from showing up and being the help the other person needed. There is a reason for each person to be on every side, and we “win” by accepting that rather than fighting for our “team”.

pretty much you can't have good if you don't have evil, and vice versa I like to think of the Yin and Yang" in Chinese philosophy Different doesn't equate to good or bad but signifies uniqueness

Sisphus, I still don't know how you do it with these timings. Currently taking a philosophy class this year and having a pretty good time with it. One question that I decided to ask my professor during office hours yesterday pertained to why evil still persists giving conflicts that are ongoing in the world at the moment and why it makes it hard for me to believe that a God exists. Of course, I gained a lot chatting with my prof but I can't help but chuckle that this dropped just a day after. Good stuff man!

Disproportionate fear of death produces evil actions. I perceive that death may be inevitable but excessive anxiety and fear of death is not.

sisyphus why did you delete the "thank you for leaving me" video. That was one of my favorites of all time!

if someone hates or complains about the world they're in, they are always the last to know that they are complaining about the life that they themselves concocted.

Right, because the world two centuries ago, full of inquisitions, slavery and total authoritarian regimes was sooo friendly...

I didn't like this. Nihilistic as all get out.

The opposite of love is not hate, for hate still has concerns about the hated. The opposite of love and hate is apathy, for only in indifference is there no possibility for mercy or kindness.

A perfect time to share this. Free Palestine.

3 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ,(A) set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.(B) 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.(C) 3 For you died,(D) and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life,(E) appears,(F) then you also will appear with him in glory.(G) 5 Put to death,(H) therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature:(I) sexual immorality,(J) impurity, lust, evil desires and greed,(K) which is idolatry.(L) 6 Because of these, the wrath of God(M) is coming.[b] 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.(N) 8 But now you must also rid yourselves(O) of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander,(P) and filthy language from your lips.(Q) 9 Do not lie to each other,(R) since you have taken off your old self(S) with its practices 10 and have put on the new self,(T) which is being renewed(U) in knowledge in the image of its Creator.(V) Colossians 3:1-10

I used to smoke weed. I came to all these same conclusions when I smoked. I considered writing a book about it, but I also figured someone else probably already did. And eventually I was proven right on that when I discovered the wikipedia article about Terror Management Theory.

If you ain't rich, you ain't sheet. End of story. If you're poor, you have no coin, connections, crews, clout, computer code, control, communities, nor opportunities. That means you'll be invisible and ignored. No exceptions.

Love for the other, a path of righteousness, as a gateway to true peace. Truthfully when I think of myself I am thinking of another. The self I think of is not the self that anyone else thinks of, or even what everyone else sees when they see me. How could I possibly observe myself observing? Any time I try I'm only observing my shadow, another that is separate from me. I am you. When others say you in my direction I respond because it is a name I identify with. If I love every other, find peace with everyone, I will find peace with myself. But what of I? I am also I. When others say I in my direction, this is something unique compared to most, I hear them as though they said you sometimes. I recognize so many words of mine that are from others that use the name I. I is amazing as a word because it's like a homonym in quantum superposition, upon being observed it quantum collapses into being a clear reference to someone in particular. I like to think of these words as quantonyms. I observe someone saying something like "I went to the store." as "You went to the store." and ponder what that could mean if I didn't actually go to the store, I think about it metaphorically. I see so many things I've written using the word I that I have zero memory of writing, things from an entirely different era of life. We share the same genes, the same blood, the same origins, but it's as intuitive for me to say we are one as it is to say I am one with someone I walked past on the sidewalk. And so... I'm one with everyone to be one with myself. One might look at all of this as something emergent of dissociation, of mania, and this sentence of some transient lucidity poking in to twist the knife. There's the age old saying about crazy people not being people that know that they are crazy... I think that from experience around the mentally ill it's pretty clear that they very often comment on their lack of rationale, or at least a large amount of them. To make insanity a sort of unfalsifiable truth that fundamentally can't be observed is essentially to accept a religious premise of sorts. Like, say, a form of Deism. A God that does things sneakily, follows the laws of physics, and is impossible for any human to observe. Insanity in this case would be a deity, a true given that constructs circumstances and can't be observed. There's even a creation myth for such a concept. Insanity and I would have been intertwined following a traumatic event of sorts, creating all of my actions and being a religious premise to hermeneutically observe every single thing I've ever done and satisfyingly tesselate all of those things into a neat and concise framework rather than being content with chaos. Chaos is like a burning charcoal under one's feet, same with Fear. Fear is rooted in Chaos, a fundamental lack of congruence with Order. But what is this? A relationship with Order that is... ordered? Chaos has a line of symmetry with Order, meaning that if Order is required for Chaos then Order must have existed prior to Chaos. Chaos has an ordered relationship with Order; all Order is, Chaos isn't. So, Death. Ernest Becker had some very interesting ideas about Death, considering all of society to be so fixated on Death that it's the coal that keeps society's polluting engine running. Death, in a lot of senses, is a higher power. Death may be impossible to prove conscious, sure, but Consciousness is a higher power too in a way that's clear as day when people successfully perform a rebuttal of "Cogito ergo sum." from Descartes. Consciousness attributed to deities is just another convolution. Anyways, we can't observe Death unless we believe that we have died. Hearts used to be the source of considering a person a living person or a dead person before CPR and discoveries about the human brain. People whose hearts have stopped have observed Death. Let's look at the facts here. Death, being a deity that is impossible to observe so long as one is alive, is unfalsifiable to someone with a framework such as: "I can only observe so long as I am alive, and when I die I can no longer observe. Therefore I can not observe Death." This means that there is no fundamental proof that Death exists to someone under such a framework. Every moment that one with such a framework is alive one can observe, and every moment one is dead one cannot observe, and thus every experience is eternally alive in the way that a painting is perfectly itself. Under such a framework Death could be considered a deity one could be Agnostic or even Atheistic towards because there would never be observed evidence to support Death existing. With all of that said... why is Death? What makes Death not something that applies to one who falls asleep and wakes up later, one who unconsciously grabs a glass of water before formulating one's next thought, or one who simply thinks that they have died? All Death boils down to is what we think Death is. Death is a higher power. With Fear, or with Love, wondering about Death brings about the best and the worst parts within us all. Acts of bravery, and acts of cowardice and sadistic pleasure. Death is a quantonym, just like I, because I am Death. I decide what is Death, and I decide what is Life. By loving all I love myself. How does one love the one behind I? Just be. I am, I am doing, I am being, and I have done as something I have yet do not possess.

Before asking this question. Ask yourself if you have perpetuated evil in the modern world. Humanity does evil things and your one of them.

Because we have to share it with people who couldn't care less about us.

Love is definitely the answer, it took me 26 years to find it for real And to create art to immortalise yourself couldn't be a better expression of what it means to be human Wise words

It may not be the root of evil, but a fundamental lack of empathy for others must surely be fairly proximate to its source.

You know what has me sad, almost any pure looking think has an ulterior dark underside to it. Like the front of holiness of the catholic religion’s child molestation. It really feels like there is nothing pure here except endless suffering. I feel like I’m already in hell and hopefully this world is as close to it as I have to come.

Sisyphus never fails to clap my cheeks

The lack of Love ( Evil ) is taught ! & is a result of Teaching Greed rather than Kindness ! !

Won't lie, the title sounds dangerously close to some psych2go crap or modern School of Life. Good you manage to keep a standard of good quality philisophy videos other channels have ceased.

By “Love” you can only mean universal love, as the counteragent to fear. I not only disagree that universal love would be too much to ask for the average person, but also that the counterpoint to fear is not love at all, it is wisdom. It is more accurate to speak of the overcoming of ignorance as being the antidote to fear, and that is achieved through the recognition of three things; Impermanence, Determinism, and Universal Incompleteness.

All I think is, we as a species have emotions, and those emotions motivate our wants and needs, hints why we get upset if we don’t get what we want or need, and why we are happy when we have what we want and need, evil is determined through negativity becoming a reality, going against others wants and needs IS EVIL. And to understand WILL as a whole is an upper hand in life.

Incredibly difficult to love the oppressors, and what they do without subjugating oneself to them. But then, that masochistic.

Godlessness and materialism, causes virtues to disappear

I'd rather die than become a wage slave my entire life. Living paycheck to paycheck is no way to live