People in white coats: November 2014

Sunday, 23 November 2014

Why heartlessness is good for the universe

Professor Morituri, evil genius and would-be conqueror of the Earth, tries to justify the need for evil and heartlessness on the basis of the greater universal good.

Let us proceed with a thought experiment to explain Professor Morituri's theory. We will consider the hapless victim of a cringe-inducing incident.

This dreadful mishap, of course, causes a decrease in the victim's level of happiness. This decrease is reflected by a similar one in the universal level of happiness.

Now if there is a kind-hearted witness to the incident, they will doubtless feel and manifest empathy to the victim.

This empathy may alleviate some of the discomfort felt by said victim, but only to a slight extent given the importance of their injury. At the universal level, this decrease in unhappiness is made even less significant, and even completely erased, by the level of unhappiness observed in the empathetic witness: seeing someone hurt makes them very unhappy, and so the level of universal happiness drops. Despite good intentions, empathy and kindness are therefore the cause of an increase in universal unhappiness.

However, if the witness is a heartless jerk, he will demonstrate no empathy... and even derive great amusement from the event.

This will create an input of happiness that, at the universal level, will compensate for the victim's unhappiness.

If there is more than one heartless witness, the result will be amplified: their combined glee at seeing someone else in an awkward situation will more than compensate for the victim's unhappiness.

There will even be a net gain of universal happiness.

Professor Morituri's conclusion is inescapable: if one is concerned by universal happiness, one should make an effort to make fun of everyone else's problems. After all, isn't global happiness more important than the happiness of a few individuals?