this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Police. As much as I hate their current incarnation, I. Some form or fashion they are required to handle those that do harm to others intentionally.

[–] DempstersBox@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Except here's the thing: in every form and fashion, they don't actually do anything to the ones doing the most harm

[–] TheBeege@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

Money. It encourages greed, but it allows us to scale exchange of goods and services far more than we otherwise could

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Government.

In an ideal world, everyone would get along and coordinate effectively in a voluntary manner. There would be no need for any government to enforce laws or provide services.

[–] Kissaki@feddit.org 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You consider any form of government evil?

[–] DempstersBox@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

HAHAHHAHA yeah

Yeah they are

[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Nah we have machetes

[–] zxqwas@lemmy.world 66 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Tax. Noone wants their money to be taken away. But it's probably a good idea to have at least some government funded stuff.

[–] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 27 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I mean, corrupted administration aside, is it really even "evil" to fund a institution that forsee the development of your surrounding? If anything it's simply quid pro quo, and people who generally against any taxation is always fishy to me.

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[–] callouscomic@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 week ago (2 children)

For the general masses that lack fucking brain cells. Some people actually comprehend the value of society and central public resources and WANT their money collectively put to good use.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 6 days ago

That's conservatives for you, whine about taxes but are total welfare queens. They don't see having no income taxes in their states harm them, no schools no physicians.

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Polarization is causing a lot of people to doubt that the collective money actually will be put to good use. In a lot of places (like my country, Israel) they're damn right, it's not.

[–] Emi@ani.social 13 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I might be wrong but I think people would gladly pay 50% of their income as tax if it meant they would get their basic needs met and see the money be put to a good use. Imagine getting just half your pay but be able to fully use it on whatever you want and not have to worry about food and rent. Or at least that's what I'd like to believe.

[–] Shiggles@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The tax being on your income and not entirely on corporations always felt like a fairly biased distinction. If companies paid the entire income tax long before it got to you, and you were simply paid ~2/3rds as much, I feel like people’s opinions would be different despite not much changing.

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[–] notabot@piefed.social 53 points 1 week ago

Surgery, especially on animals.

In any other context, someone cutting you open, slicing bits out or rearranging them, them sewing you shut would be considered horrific, but we do it because we know that the short term suffering out weighs the long term harm of not doing it. When you choose it for yourself it might not be too 'evil', but an animal would not understand, even if you know it will mean they get to live a long, happy life, free of the pain and suffering that issue would otherwise cause.

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 50 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Killing hitler and the nazis. Not just the top guys. Also the bottom layers of the system.

Killing is bad. But...its nazis.

Same also goes to all other dictators and their helpers. Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Putin, Assat, Lenin

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[–] frankPodmore@slrpnk.net 39 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Prison seems the obvious one. It's obviously (to me, that is) not desirable to deprive anyone of their freedom, but for persistently violent people I don't think there's a better solution, unfortunately.

nah, the justice system is absolutely fucked. in a world where we remake the law around restorative and rehabilitative justice rather than punitive, we're probably not even going to be calling it "prison" anymore

[–] Mastema@infosec.pub 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I agree that separating people who do not abide by the contract of society is necessary, but I think we (America) are wrong to make it a punitive experience. Separate them and let them live their lives as comfortably as they can. Causing additional suffering does not seem to be necessary.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Currently trying to lock up as many of the populace all the numbers show cause less crime. At some point we are going to have to question if there is a higher percentage of psychopaths out of prison than in.

Edit: note, a large group of people would say "we need to lock up more people to solve it" and a large group of people would say "we need to let out all the not-psychopaths who aren't a threat to society and then only arrest those who are a threat". And somehow both would think they were humane. And propoganda would role out to convince the first group they should lock up the second group. Because compassion or empathy is a threat

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[–] RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I bought a Pixel so could install a degoogle OS on the phone. This largely removed Google from my life.

[–] Laristal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Shame they're making that harder going forward by removing pixel specific info from the build tree

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Violence against fascists.

[–] DioramaOfShit@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

Luigi mangione

Evil that's necessary isn't evil, just painful.

Anyway, my example: a fever? 😅

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] T3CHT@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Lobotomy, electroshock and castration are historic treatments for various extreme mental disorders that were, probably mistakenly, considered necessary evils lacking other treatments.

These days prozac, benzos and lithium fall into a similar category.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I'm not sure if you're comparing SSRIs to castration but I'm gonna assume you're not.

I dont think any prescriber would consider any of those medicines necessary. a much better example would be steroids like prednisone. it weakens your immune system, but it's absolutely necessary at times.

SSRIs are rarely necessary, but are a useful tool. too much to say on this.

Benzos are a short term solution to enable more longer term treatments. they're absolute monsters of a drug class, but really effective for sure.

fentanyl would be a better example of a necessary evil. it's synthesis revolutionized surgery.

finally, lithium is a funny example -- we still don't even really know how it works!! but it's a mood stabilizer and can be hugely beneficial for managing bipolar disorder. that said, one can attempt to manage bipolar symptoms without medications, but it's certainly going to be harder and possibly less effective

[–] truite@jlai.lu 1 points 5 days ago

Electroshock is still a "treatment" in many countries.

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 6 points 1 week ago

Existence. It's also a paradox because without existence it's impossible to be either evil or necessary.

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