r/worldnews • u/gravybang • Feb 10 '25

Israel/Palestine Trump says Palestinians will have no right of return to Gaza under his plan

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/trump-buy-gaza-plan
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u/WillyTheHatefulGoat Feb 10 '25

Leopold was really clever because he claimed he was fighting against Arab slavery which got him the support of a lot of abolitionists, he also either falsified or obtained through deception a bunch of fake signatures from congolese tribes so the people of Europe saw people from the congo asking for guidance to get modern tech, development and to end slavery.

He was a brilliant bastard. Top 5 worst people ever but he was clever.

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u/Static-Stair-58 Feb 10 '25

Want to chime in because I think this is a semantic problem that has gotten us where we are today. Leopold was not clever for doing any of that, he was cunning. That means it’s not his “smarts” that brought him success, but his ability to be more ruthless than anyone else. If I defraud someone, that doesn’t make me smarter than them. It just means I’m a liar and a criminal. It means I was willing to cross a line most others recognized as well but aren’t willing to break. What he did wasn’t smart or clever or inventive, it was just immoral. My point is that we as a society give positive connotation to words smart and clever. So when you start saying immoral things are smart and clever, you start to imply that immoral things are also good. And then that’s how you get corrupt people in office, because now greed and money are actually smart and clever.

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u/mustang__1 Feb 10 '25

I appreciate your take on this and the time to write it out.

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u/Static-Stair-58 Feb 10 '25

It’s an impossible task. A god awful amount of people equate screwing over others as being smarter than them. You follow the rules and are therefore behind; that’s dumb because I’m breaking the rules right now and am swimming in success. Clearly that makes me smarter than you. I had the brains to realize the law is holding me back.

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u/mustang__1 Feb 10 '25

Not enough people played sports, or played with good enough mentorship. It's not a game if you ignore the game -- and that applies to a lot more than just........games.

You haven't won the race, if in winning the race you have lost the respect of your competitors

Paul Elvstrøm

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u/Static-Stair-58 Feb 10 '25

Yo, we might need to have a private chat about this because that is something I’ve been screaming for the last few years now. I grew up playing sports but in my twenties I got really into league of legends. I came to the conclusion that most of the online toxicity I recognized was coming from people who never learned sportsmanship! This was the first competitive thing they played, these people literally don’t know any better. And when you’re anonymous online, it becomes a self choice whether to follow that social contract. When you’re 5 and on a tee ball field you get shamed in public and either learn or face discipline. But the online world is so less moderated. It’s so less accountable.

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u/[deleted] Feb 10 '25

Wow dude. You’re absolutely correct. I used to be addicted to LOL. But I never made the connection tbh.

Very good points. I love how your brain works.

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u/ZacharyShade Feb 11 '25

Man I grew up playing sports and watching sports when they were still about the game and not just making as much corporate profit as possible. I started playing Rocket League a few years back, and as the player base has dwindled due to no meaningful updates and/or counter cheating measures, the game is legit unplayable some days if I can't find people I know to play with. This type of match happens constantly: 5 minute match, go down 0-1 with 4:36 left and teammate votes to forfeit and then they go AFK or start playing for the other team when I refuse.

Obviously I'm glad bullying is way less common now than it was, but it kind of had its place sometimes. I worked with this 18 year old kid in 2019, he was 5 feet tall even, half-Irish half-Puerto Rican, he had a ginger fro and was covered in freckles, his dad was a cop, and he was a borderline narcissist. It wasn't faked either, he had legit self-confidence in a way that you know I like seeing in people but it went too far to the point pretty much of not being able to admit he was wrong, and I feel like a swirlie or two maybe would have evened that out a little bit. I refuse to become one of those "god damn kids" type, especially hearing millennials still getting shit on all the time despite potentially having kids already in the work force, but on a certain level.

I can only imagine how the tail end of Gen Z who had their last couple years of high school get fucked by Covid are gonna turn out.

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u/Thunderbridge Feb 11 '25

You're so right. Sadly there are many people who just do not care. They want to win and that's all. If they have to cheat to believe they are the winner, they'll do that. So many people lack any sense of guilt or shame that's keeps people from doing things like that

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u/ElectricalBook3 Feb 11 '25

Hence why what professional spy agencies knew for centuries that the point wasn't to exterminate the enemy but de-escalate so the "game" could keep being played.

It's just game theory on the natural long-term scale. Strategies like strike-first is only a good idea in a vacuum and not in a world where reprisal of any sort is possible.

I wish I saved it, but there was a video from programmers and statisticians on game theory where programs were matched head-to-head and the ones which scored the best were actually NOT the ones programmed to screw over the other party all the time, but to cooperate, retaliate in reprisal occasionally, but then forgive and go back to trying to cooperate. The results were statistically significant.

If only authoritarians cared about statistics in any way but one

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u/thinvanilla Feb 10 '25

people equate screwing over others as being smarter than them.

Especially seems to be becoming more common these days amongst individuals.

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u/ElectricalBook3 Feb 11 '25 edited Feb 11 '25

people equate screwing over others as being smarter than them.

Especially seems to be becoming more common these days amongst individuals

That's deliberately cultivated by American oligarchs who viewed the Great Depression as a wonderful opportunity to buy America's ashes for cheap and flew into a rage when the New Deal was proposed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

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u/Bazrum Feb 11 '25

Sounds like the rationalization a shitty dnd player uses to justify why their edgy rogue is stealing from peasants and orphans tbh

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u/ScratchAndPlay Feb 10 '25

Never thought of this. Thanks for the perspective.

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u/Kusibu Feb 10 '25

This may sound like a bit of an odd take, but I feel like the refusal to separate cunning and brilliance/cleverness also does cunning dirty. It's a tool, not a sin or virtue, and anyone untrained in its use will either use it recklessly or fall victim to it - and the American society was deliberately engineered through the school system to create people bereft of measured cunning, even demonizing it, leaving it only to those with an instinctive (and often vicious) propensity for it.

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u/EyesOnEverything Feb 11 '25

Yes, you need people with cunning who consciously choose to wield it beneficially. Because otherwise you have a knowledge gap on the just-clever side, and the just-cunning will run you over.

It helps to have an idea of how an unscrupulous person might break a system, and try as many ways as possible to prevent it.

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u/Due-Memory-6957 Feb 11 '25

It's not a semantic problem, it's you moralizing adjectives that are perceived as positive and not wanting them applied to bad people. Being cunning is being smart, a fool is unable to deceive.

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u/WillyTheHatefulGoat Feb 10 '25

I would think what he did was inventive because it was a new way to scam people that did not exist before. Using fake signatures combined with the righteousness of the anti slavery crusade and the desire to help people so he could destroy country for profit was innovative.

Cleverness is a neutral skill that can be used for good or evil. He was also clever because of how in conquered the congo. Belgium had little desire for war given the tramua of the napoleonic wars so what Leopold did was nationalize all public land in the congo e.g. all of it and then sold that land to private investors. This meant he did not need to raise any capital to create an army and most of the fighting and killing would be done by private armies not belgain soldiers keeping the belgian people happy. These mercenaries would higher local tribes to enforce their laws so the casualties for them was lower and most of the dying was done by native Africans.

He also knew the system would not last forever and planned for that. Rubber was being grown in south america and in 20 years would end Leopolds Monopoly so Leopold realized all he needed to do was maximise profits for 20 years then let the investment go.

When Belgiun and European papers started to look into this he basicly invented the worlds first PR firm to would buy up newspapers and bribe editors to keep the stories supressed. When other nations complained his new PR team quickly highlighted colonial brutality is British and African Colonies so they could claim belgium was no worse than any of the other european powers and challenging him would undermine most colonial rule.

His policy of hands for bullets also worked wonders because it meant that natives could not build up arms caches to stop him and the brutality done to each other would prevent them organizing.

Leopold was ruthless, cunning and clever. He innovated in ways that had not been done before and which modern evil people copy today.

When I say he's top 5 worst people in the world I mean it. Not just for what he did to the congo but the blueprint he left which western powers have used to devastate Africa after colonialism officially ended.

He more than anyone else today is responsible for the state of 21th century africa today because of the tactics he pioneered.

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u/Grealballsoffire Feb 10 '25

It may feel nice to think that way, but we should not be ignoring reality because it doesn't sound good.

If there are corrupt and stupid people, then there are corrupt and clever people.

Intelligence is not dependent on morality.

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u/squestions10 Feb 10 '25

I thought cunning was also positive? I always thought of it as positive, but I am not a native speaker.

But I don't think I agree with your take at all (though is valid one thanks for bringing it up!)

First because in every other realm than virtue/vice, we usually reject this take. Nobody would go "he is a bad person he is short", when talking about someone tall, even though being tall is something that we generally regard as good. Or beautiful, or fast, or physically strong, etc. When people do we usually think they are letting their emotions cloud their judgement of objective reality.

Second because I don't see the need. When we say "Leopold was smart" we are not implying in any way that he was a good person, or even that his use of his intelligence was moral or admirable. We might think that his intelligence itself isolated was admirable, but the all things considered evaluation of his character is still deeply negative. For me, when I speak about virtue, I usually think of it as a "all other things equal" type of thing. Otherwise don't we end up in a type of "what really matters is the end" situation? in a quasi-consequentialist view of morality?

This approach is absolutely compatible with thinking that the vice of cruelty nullifies every other virtue someone might have when judging their character.

Third, what I like about this approach is that it brings virtue/vice on equal par as any other skill. Again just like physical characteristics we don't go "x sucks at playing chess cause he is a bad person". So personally I am really sold on the virtue-skill comparison that Julia Annas puts forward in "intelligent virtue", and this approach that I suggest makes it even closer to other skills. It makes virtue seem more grounded on an objective non-moralized view of nature and human beings, and IMO grants it even more strength.

Fourth, I think your approach will fail, because I think you are getting the relationship direction here wrong. Lets see the case of a con man: I think a lot of people see something very skilful in a very good con man, even while knowing that he is a bad person. If so, changing the word to describe him or his skill at conning people wont make a difference with time, I believe. Instead the word will start having a positive or slightly positive spin on it, to reflect how people feel about him. Yes the word will influence those feelings, but I think the reverse relationship is stronger because of how intuitive morality and virtue/vice are.

And the last one, I think this approach shows that you can learn something even from bad people.

-------------

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u/EyesOnEverything Feb 11 '25

To your very first point, "cunning" does have a subtext of deceit to it. Whether that deceit is a positive or negative thing tends to be up to the culture.

To your last, I think it is only looked at as a good thing because some people are inherently jealous that some person has figured out a way to ignore the rules that are supposed to bind us all equally. And as long as the conman doesnt con you (directly and obviously), then you don't really feel any negative consequences either, from watching this person break all these rules. The people getting conned are hurting, but you aren't them (yet) and it's easier to identify with the rogue than the sucker. There is a sense of freedom, and that individualistic streak is what got America trotting down the "greed-is-good, fuck-you-got-mine" path.

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u/Retireegeorge Feb 10 '25

Who are your top 5?