LIVE WITHOUT HARMING! ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR EVIL AND FIGHT AGAINST IT

A death like the one the children in this video were on the verge of experiencing—a death from thirst and hunger, trapped under rubble, in darkness, and in an absolutely claustrophobic (non-)space—is very cruel and distressing. Imagine yourself or your loved ones in that situation. Having your home destroyed (in Gaza, over 50% have been destroyed) and having to leave everything to escape with only the clothes on your back to another place and start from scratch (over 80% of Gazans have had to do so) is very hard and unjust for someone who is innocent.

Equally atrocious was the prior attack on October 7, 2023, by Hamas against Israeli and other nationalities’ civilians, including murders, kidnappings, gang rapes, mutilations of living people, public humiliations, etc. And some of the victims were completely innocent.

But the most devastating thing of all is not the above, but rather the overwhelming percentages of support from Israeli Jews for the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza (only 1.8% reject it) and from Palestinians for Hamas’s brutal atrocities (only 13% are against it).

Ultimately, numbers are what count, not the friendliness, cordiality, and good vibes of people at a dinner party or family meal. What matters is not the skin of the fruit, but what you find inside when you open it and discover whether it is in good condition or, on the contrary, rotten and to what extent. And that great melon that is humankind can be opened and explored through sociological surveys, which are what truly provide more or less reliable X-rays of what a society is really like on the inside.

This massive complicity with evil does not end there, as the Israeli government receives support from numerous Western leaders (who often appear very smiling and pleasant before the cameras, but when it comes down to it, sometimes they are ruthless!), especially from the center and right. And it also enjoys the sympathy of many citizens in the Western world, especially upper-middle and upper-class white individuals who identify with Jews—white, prosperous, successful, and Western (they see them as an extension of their own culture in the Middle East, as their branch in that area)—in contrast to poor Palestinians belonging to Muslim civilization, often perceived as opposed to Western civilization.

And similarly, politicians of the far-left and extreme-left, and people from lower classes, position themselves in the opposite way. Although they claim that the reason for their support for Palestinians is that they were the indigenous population and Zionists came to colonize them, there is a component of envy and rejection of Jews for being rich, successful, and entrepreneurial, and an identification with Palestinians for generally being the opposite.

To this must be added the vast majority of Muslims, who show complicity with Palestine despite most Palestinians supporting Hamas and therefore being complicit in its crimes against innocents. Again, although they argue that Jews must be expelled from Israel because Palestinians were there first, the main reason is that Palestinians are Muslims like them, belonging to the Ummah (Community of Believers), and therefore they consider them their brothers, an extension of themselves, as well as the fact that they consider Jerusalem the third holiest site for them after Mecca and Medina.

Only a minority defends all innocent victims (regardless of their ethnic group) and takes a stand against all their victimizers and their accomplices (likewise). Only this minority clearly understands that it is not right to HARM EVEN 1 HAIR OF EVEN 1 INNOCENT PERSON.

If the above is the harsh reality, it is because abuse (on a small, medium, and large scale) and complicity with it are part of human nature.

And in this regard, I have 1 very bad and 2 good pieces of news:

THE BAD NEWS

These percentages of large majorities of criminal Homo sapiens (I said it right, criminal, because they are complicit in crimes that cause great suffering to innocents) are repeated, with certain percentage variations that do not alter the character of large majorities, among Russians and Ukrainians and other groups in other conflicts.

In fact, they would be similar in our specific societies under those same circumstances, since we are the same species and our evil DNA is basically the same as that of those ethnic groups. And they are also similar to that of our ancestors who committed great cruelties supported by most of the population, such as human sacrifices, mistreatment of homosexuals, enslavement of people belonging to other racial, ethno-linguistic, or ethno-religious groups, the right of conquest that allowed the stealing of lands and riches from the conquered and forcing them to work for the conquerors (“right” that was part of international law until after World War II), the right to rape women in conquered territories, and a long etcetera.

And they are similar to that majority of Westerners who currently support slavery, exploitation, and animal abuse on factory farms or in medical experiments.

This is because all Homo sapiens are born with some benign genes, on the one hand, but with other very malignant ones, on the other, both aimed at satisfying our needs and desires, those of our loved ones, and our group. From a biological point of view, all of this is aimed at perpetuating our genes. We are not to blame for having this victimizing DNA, as we did not choose it, but we are responsible for correcting it.

By default, the genetic programming we are born with leads us to treat those we consider “respectable” well and to abuse those we consider “victimizable,” with hardly any empathy, compassion, or guilt that we would experience if we committed those same misdeeds against the “respectable.” And who tells us who is worthy of consideration and who is “a thing or a balance that doesn’t count” whom we can trample or take advantage of at will? The group we belong to. Therefore, these subjective labels vary greatly among different cultures and eras.

We are like Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. The former is the devoted mother to her children, the affectionate friend who does us a favor, the pleasant neighbor and shop assistant, or the volunteer who dedicates a few hours a week to an NGO. Mister Hyde is all these same people when they support Israel or Palestine (and are therefore complicit in the atrocities they commit), when they are against animal rights, LGBTQ+ rights, when they commit dishonesties, and generally when they cause any harm, directly or indirectly, to any sentient being that is not legitimate self-defense against an aggressor.

This harsh reality contrasts with the positive, sweetened, and embellished concept we usually have of ourselves, our close ones, and our own species in general. Why? Because of the species and group narcissism we possess, through which we are delighted with ourselves and believe we are the best of all species (despite being the cruelest among them), different and special, and therefore entitled to use them at will, exploit and mistreat them, feeling varying degrees of indifference to the suffering we cause them. We tend to believe that we are so cool and superior to other species, races, ethnicities, or groups that we deserve privileges over them and have the right to strip them of their rights. All of the above are typical symptoms of perverse narcissism.

Our species and group narcissism leads us to primarily see good parents who provide us with much, angelic children in infancy whom we dote on, friends for whom we feel great mutual affection, and cordial acquaintances, because our brain deceives us with this cognitive bias. It makes us see mostly Doctor Jekyll and hardly Mr. Hyde. It’s similar to falling in love, where the brain secretes substances, like catecholamines, to create an idealized mirage of the beloved person, seeing only virtues and no flaws until the effects of infatuation wear off.

For all these reasons, we tend to believe that villains are only a few, the typical “bad guys in the movie,” but not the majority, whom we often see as those protagonists of funny comedies, those carefree, amusing, friendly, and innocent characters who seem incapable of breaking a plate. But they only SEEM so, let’s not deceive ourselves. Because one only has to wait for a situation conducive to abuse to discover their hyper-predatory modus operandi and how they go all out.

The whitewashing of the human species varies greatly among individuals. The closer an individual is to psychopathy, the more they see abuse and cruelty not as bad but as normal, and the less empathy they feel for their victims, as well as less guilt. And vice versa: the more sense of justice one has and the higher their ethical standards, the more evil they perceive the human species to be, and the more they react cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally to abuses.

Other genetic factors that contribute to our failure to recognize our evil are our attachment to tradition and the herd effect, as we tend to believe that if our perversities are in line with that tradition and with what the majority of our group does, they are not considered such evils, but merely customs. But the reality is that crimes are always crimes, no matter how institutionalized, lawful, socially accepted, or supported by authorities they may be. For example, the suffering inflicted on Jews in Nazi Germany did not cease to be atrocities, no matter how much they met all those requirements.

In fact, most crimes are not those that appear in the crime section of newspapers, committed by someone who deviates from the established order, but rather those permitted or even approved and supported by most of society, which is why they are often large-scale.

That dark side we possess is deeply rooted in us, although it is difficult to know since when we have had it. It could be that it has been part of our genetic map for millions of years, even before we were Homo sapiens sapiens, since our sister species, chimpanzees, with whom some studies suggest we share 98-99% of our DNA, are also very aggressive and ruthless (though with significant differences between individuals). It is possible, therefore, that the CHLCA, the probable common ancestor we share with chimpanzees, already possessed that cruelty, although this is not entirely certain, because it would also be the ancestor of bonobos, who are quite benign.

But what is clear is that since the Neolithic period, there has been a process of genetic selection in which the most evil humans have left significantly more offspring than the more benevolent ones, through the widespread practice of rape. During the thousands of years of the Neolithic, endemic warfare and attacks on neighboring tribes to steal their lands and women (in the case of agricultural villages) or livestock and women (in the case of pastoral tribes) were common. Obviously, the unscrupulous were those most prone to theft and rape of women, and therefore, those who left the most offspring.

In the subsequent millennia of chiefdoms, kingdoms, and empires, this frequent practice of wars and rape of conquered women continued. As if that weren’t enough, it was common for scoundrel and bullying feudal lords to sexually abuse and rape women living on their lands, because since they themselves were the judges and held military power, who was going to stop them? This is why, for example, a depraved Asian like Genghis Khan, who exterminated some 40 million people, a considerable percentage of the Asian population (in Iran alone, it is estimated that he murdered 75-90% of its inhabitants), and who used impalements and other very cruel forms of death, left much more offspring (it is estimated that 8% of Asians are descended from him) than a benevolent Asian like Gandhi.

This process of genetic selection has lasted at least 11,000 years, affecting at least 440 generations. In much of Europe, it did not end until World War II, when, once again, there were mass rapes. Therefore, it is not surprising that current generations have inherited so much malignant DNA from the most abusive and bullying individuals. We have more genetic inheritance from the unjust than from the just, from the miserable than from the noble, and from the vile than from the upright. That is why we often do not realize our villainies, as it is precisely these chromosomes of abuse that either prevent us from seeing them as such or lead us to look the other way because it is convenient for our selfish interests.

THE 2 GOOD NEWS

The first good news is that our tendency to trample on others is our default programming, but we can change it, just as when we acquire an app or a computer program, it comes with a default configuration, but we can go to Settings and change it to our liking.

To go to our internal Settings screen and uncheck the “Harm Others” option, it is first necessary to realize that we have that option selected, that by inertia we operate with an abusive side, and then to repent and wish to make amends.

The second piece of news is that all or almost all of us have an innate sense of justice (one must be very psychopathic not to have it) to varying degrees depending on the person. And if we resort to it, it will be the best tool to make amends and become increasingly good people.

However, our individual improvement is only a start, by no means an end, as there are over 8 billion inhabitants on this planet. To complete this noble task, it would be necessary to convince all of them. But let’s not get overwhelmed; let’s start with just a few and then move on to others. This is also a moral debt to the victims we have harmed and whom we can no longer directly compensate, either because they are already deceased or because for some other reason it is not viable or very difficult. They would possibly wish that the reparation for the harm consisted of us doing something so that no one else suffers the abuses they experienced.

And most importantly: educate the next generations in a culture of respect, of not harming others.

If we do nothing, victimization will continue century after century, as it has for millennia. And at times, large-scale atrocities will likely be repeated, as history is cyclical and we have the same abusive DNA as previous generations. Let us not think that the degree of civilization and peace we have achieved is guaranteed. There were other Paxes in the past (like the Pax Romana or the Mongolian Pax) that eventually disappeared, leading to countless wars and horrors.

The above will be much more likely to happen if, for any reason (climatic, economic, natural disasters, overpopulation, depletion of natural resources, meteorite, etc.), the resources we need become scarce. The moment it becomes difficult to feed our children and ourselves will be the perfect breeding ground for us to unleash our most survivalist-hyper-aggressive-thieving-conquering-unscrupulous side, for the flourishing of extremist options (as happened with Nazism as a consequence of the great economic crisis after the 1929 crash), conflicts, wars, and massive human rights violations.

The best vaccine against this is the education of future generations in the ethics of goodness (in addition to prosperity accessible to all).

But regardless of what happens in the future, which is difficult to predict, let’s do something in the present to reduce cruelty to the bare minimum!

What is better for everyone: to stand idly by and let inertia take over, or to do something to achieve a better world for all to live in? A less harsh and more just world for both current generations and our descendants?

Because, when you are about to die and look back, what will you wish you had done that you didn’t, and what will you regret?

Thank you,