Why does it feel like evil is winning globally?

People are scared and angry and want action without thinking about the long-term gains only the short term. Creating fear is fascism 101 and how many rise to power

Because westerners are obsessed with good vs. Evil for absolutely no reason.

Because evil people control all the media

Neuroscience says that the scared brain has a lower IQ, which is good for giving in to survival instincts in an acute threat situation, but really bad to make any longterm decisions. Populists try to scare us for this very reason. Scared people are easier to manipulate. It's working, and it's fucking scary how effective it is. But I am not scared in the way that lowers my critical reflection. So I hope someone brings out the guillotines before more poor people (our people) die.

Because good doesn't have the stomach to go blow for blow with evil anymore.
- Gotta sink to their level!
  
  Rather than sink to their level, we should fight them with the same fervor and ferocity they bring. Nothing's more terrifying to a fascist than armed, newly extermized (if that's a word) lefties.

evil people have always been there, but we're in an era of many crisis's, it was easier to ignore it when it didn't personally effect you. Now i imagine in the next 10-20 years it'll start effecting everyone in ways we've yet to imagine. But I don't think its the end of the world or anything just that its probably time we start considering what we want our futures to look like and start making plans to survive or fight.

We have a global economic system that encourages and rewards evil. More and more countries have political systems that do the same. Good people would rather help others and make the world a better place, and this prevents them from attaining power. It would probably require doing some evil to remove the evil people from power.

Bad news sells.

Evil has always been there. People have a tendency to turn a blind eye when it isn't directed at them. Recently it's very much been directed at Europe and North America. It brings the problems of the world into sharp focus.
- This is very much it.
  I'm not trying to dismiss OP either. I'm glad they finally notice. But for a huge population of the world, it's ALWAYS been there. There's been a lot of evil shit. It's just it was never on their doorstep until now.
  But this isn't a "The world is all doom and gloom".
  There is a significant amount of positive upswings. Looking in the past 10,000 years, we are absolutely in a better era. We can make jokes and shit post about it, but the average person's quality of life back then no where matched what we are doing today. We tend to be relatively safe. We can get a variety of food anywhere.
  Humans unfortunately only have a small window of time and don't see it, but there's a lot of good in the past hundred years.

Cause it's unfortunately a fact of life. Evil people assume positions of power most often.

Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. Strong people create good times.
Repeat.
Otherwise - because you are being absolutely nuke-blasted by negative news all around the world. If you wen't offline for a month, you wouldn't see any issue at all.
- Good times create weak people. Weak people create bad times. Bad times create strong people. Strong people create good times.
  Isn't that like textbook alt-right propaganda?
  
  It is, but it kind of applies here too. Let's reclaim it and ruin their stupid slogan.

Because evil is loud and self-important, and people doing good have learned to be mycelial, underground, quietly building the new world in the shell of the old.
- Evil also tends to be wealthy. And wealthy people suck up all the oxygen in whatever room their in.
- I really like this, and I think this is exactly what Jesus meant with the oft-misunderstood "The meek shall inherit the Earth."
  There's so much loud roaring nonsense going on, but we're quietly just building our own layer of alternative society to exist on, for people, hoping it can stand on its own when the power hungry institutions collapse in on themselves under the weight of their own backbiting, infighting, and greedful self-sabotage.
  It's kinda like Lemmy or Mastodon or Linux as a tech example, or mutual aid, intentional communties, and unions. We're here quietly trying to do what good we can, and when the power goes out, our light will be seen all the brighter.

We need more violent good guys
- LUIGI
- Everytime we talk about violence being the only way to create change, limp-dick liberals bitch about how peaceful protests are the only way.
  Liberalism helped build this hell, and it's determined to maintain it.
  Leftist need to get guns. Now.
  
  Liberals have good intentions at times, but they are ultimately toothless because they are pussies. I just have to roll my eyes at the people who you tell you to contact your representatives, but has never spent a minute at the range.
  Do you know how you get people to listen to you? Let them know that you and people with similar views know how to operate a rifle.
  
  So the republicans were right all this time? Wow
- We need more reasonable people who don't believe in delusional nonsense like "bad guys" and "violent good guys".
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
  
  That only works if the other side decides to not use violence
  
  More milquetoast pussy-aased doormatterie

Because people say stupid shit like "but they have laser-guided drones and you have a rifle!"
Fucking idiots do not understand how revolution works and dont know that the US military has failed every invasion.
- Yes! Please! Louder for those in the back!
  Maybe some (feels disingenuous to say all) 'pubicans actually fantasize about some Phantom Menace toe-to-toe phalanx of pickup trucks and pre-assault-weapons-ban collectibles vs. the might of an empire.
  But that lazy "they have drones tho" excuse is really used to wave off any responsibility, I think. One can be the most bleeding-heart socialist and still believe in defending themselves and their neighbors.
  It's scary to think about, and it sucks. I just wanted to make videogames and occasionally shoot for fun as a hobby, not contemplate if I'm ready to defend myself against tyranny within a collapsing former world superpower. But I think we ignore the possibilities at our extreme peril.
  Also, a large amount of the U.S military would probably side with us, for upholding the Constitution if not for their families' sake.
  It really wouldn't be pretty. We don't want it to come to that, and I honestly don't think it will, but they're not a bunch of brainless stormtroopers.
  The rightoids are busy being insufferable and getting uninvited from all their families' Thanksgivings, so maybe their cynical individualism will reduce their threat potential lol.

While times seem bad, and they are worse than they used to be, especially with the election of Donald Trump, imagine what it was like during WW2. Nazi Germany invaded France, Czechoslovakia, and half of Poland (with the Soviet Union the other half); Britain stood alone. Spain was under fascist dictatorship. Now Russia barely controls 1/5 of Ukraine, and has suffered many thousands of losses in tanks and armoured vehicles. Modern Russia is now weaker than the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany was (for their time period).
- I do wish people would stop with the "Britian stood alone." stuff. Even before Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, there were Allies fighting all over the world, resistance movements in every single continental European country, famously France, but also the Nederlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Norway, Denmark, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The entire British Empire was at war, either based in Britain, as saboteurs on the continent, on fronts from east Asia to the Sahara -- Canada, Newfoundland, Nepal, Australia, New Zealand -- India alone lost 2 million fighters (look it up!), Burma, Malta, South Africa, Egypt, and southern Rhodesia. China did not just surrender blindly: before 1941, both Mao and Sun Yat-sen had armies fighting the Japanese which kept them from attacking the Soviet Union after Hitler turned. Mongolia and Korea never stopped fighting, either. Britain endured the Blitz, it is true, and Churchill certainly made some great speeches about 'standing alone' while he was sacrificing literally millions of 'colonials' to preserve his European troops. But it was, and is, propaganda.

Because it always has been. It's called capitalism. This system will literally destroy the planet and enslave all live for the profits of a few ultra privileged man babies.
- Plenty of evil has been done under the name of communism and socialism too. It's not capitalism's fault, that's just the tool that's being used in these cases by evil people to achieve their ends.
- Evil has been winning, just the mask slipped off and now it's capitalism in decay, fascism.
  Good people are still around still doing good, it's just not any rich person or anyone in a government like this. And they won't be televised.

Because people have become comfortable enough (can't remember the downside) to flirt with populism.
Once they get the short sharp shock of what it actually means to be governed by these people we might recover from it... Maybe
- There's no "populism" under the state. It's called fascism.

That is the eventual conclusion of capitalism, the way it is currently set to play out.
The only forces that could act against it depend on the distribution of critical information.... And those are owned by the same private interests.. Soooooo. We'll see. Doesn't bode well at all.

The rebels in Myanmar are winning.
There's a new miracle drug for addictions.
That's all I can think of.
- thank you david
  
  I found half a skittle in my belly button

A combo of "it is in many places" and the press thrives on droomscrolling

One aspect is that mass media is overall owned by those people and is propaganda. If you don't have ways of seeing what's happening on the ground, you miss a lot of the good news. Even your twitter/bs/mastodon feeds won't give you the full story, you have to (where possible) get involved in a real community organization.

Because most people are either stupid, evil, or stupid and evil.
I don't know what the solution is, I can only hope its mostly just the "extreme ignorance" type of stupidity and not evil or "willing ignorance" stupidity and after experiencing the suffering they've enabled for themselves that they put 2 and 2 together and things maybe recover partially or enough to prevent the end of human civilization as we know it.
- And what makes you so much smarter and better than everyone else exactly?
  
  What's your angle? Insecurity or propaganda? Trying to guilt trip me for having a negative evaluation of the average person?
  Maybe you aren't part of the majority of people I think of as moronic, I don't know you in particular, but the question you are asking sounds like maybe you are worried that you would be. TBH, you probably aren't significantly worse than average by the mere metric of being able to read and write, depressing knowing how many functionally illiterate people there are.
  Of course, go ahead and think I'm actually the stupid one if it makes you feel better, I literally don't care about that. I care about becoming smarter and more correct perhaps, not what you think of my intellect now.

Can I reccomend for you Vlad Vexler on utube. He is a polital philosopher in the UK, whp spends most of his time dealing with this topic. He has some wonderul content which is both educated and humane.
- To summarize: democracy is waning, and we have some rough times ahead, but there will be wins mixed in with the losses.

Because we have been taking the high road. Time to play on their level. Have no shame!

Media bias. Trump is outrage and outrage moves views and views are profit. Trump is the greatest thing to happen to the media - regardless of side. We're also more connected today than we ever were before so this media gets to everyone in an instant.
Are evil people really winning globally more than they were in the past? Well.. no. We've seen more shit in the second half of the 20th century than we are now. There's still 25 years to catch up though. Heres some shit thats gone down fro 1950-2000.
Cold War - though it does seem like we are moving back to this state, we're far from living like that
Korean War, Vietnam War, Kuwait,
Cuban Missile Crisis,
Basically every Arab nation against Israel - wars galore,
Suez crisis,
Iranian revolutions,
Sino-Soviet Split,
India-Pakistan,
Soviet-Afghan war,
Numerous African civil wars in the 60s, 70s and 90s (till ongoing),
South African Apartheid,
Numerous south American dictatorships (+ CIA interventions in south America backing right wing dictators),
Falklands war - the fucking UK went to war with Argentina in the fucking 80s!
All the shit in Yugoslavia (wars, genocide),
"The Troubles" in N. Ireland.
A lot of these have been resolved.
- Must include that if you're here on Lemmy you were probably on Reddit before, and the latter has been a campaign for doom and gloom for close to a decade at this point. When you surround yourself in folks suggesting the sky is falling, you start to believe the sky is falling.
- Virtually all of your examples involve US hegemony instigating and winning, the same group doing the current stuff. Why does a war ending count as becoming less evil if it's always by the same instigator and they keep winning, jumping from conflict to conflict? Have you considered that the evil keeps winning and suppressing the good through compliance or murder?
  What is we compare the most intense 25 years of the 20th to the current 25 and label the instigators?
  
  Virtually all of your examples involve US hegemony instigating and winning
  Hmm, I disagree. There are some but I purposely wanted to include the ones where the US was not in change in order to show its been a shitshow everywhere. They obviously had a hand everywhere, since they are considered a superpower but them leading the show every time? That's a stretch.
  Ive also given examples I personally thought were extreme that happened in that century to paint a picture that it's been pretty bad for a while now and you can draw your own opinion on whether is better now or not. I don't wish to compare these events to today's but I can acknowledge they were there and that they were also, pretty fucking bad.

Because they are.

It depends on perspective. If you look at the news, online on new sites or shareable news articles, it seems to rampant. If you avoid the news and look towards your community you’ll be far less likely to believe it. It’s the interconnectedness that leads this but at the same time you aren’t being educated and helping said evil. So it’s there, it’s not a populous as people think but definitely is there. Evil isn’t global, it’s the few. It’s the people outside that you interact with daily that aren’t evil.
- Because you don't look at the news doesn't mean it isn't happening. Your perspective is deliberately limited if you ignore outside information. This is exactly what conservatives do when they willfully ignore scientific or objective facts in favor of what their echo chamber "community" anecdotal evidence tells them.

Evil was winning, we're watching the collapse of the evil empire from within.
- I like your optimism! I too, believe it will eventually succumb to its own hubris.
  We should help push it over wherever we can though, just to speed things along. 😂

Sure does feel that way 😔

What you're saying is true, but we must also remember that construction is always slower than destruction. What this means is that slow, steady improvements are not newsworthy - and thus gets no airtime - compared to destruction which happens over night and is thus newsworthy.
So there is also a lot of slow, steady improvements going on in the world that we never hear about. There's not enough of it, I don't think, to offset the big evils of greed, climate change, and fake news. But it is there, and we must not forget it.

Capitalism is dying because of unchecked greed and people are turning to socialism. The wealthy choose fascism. Until we have class unity. Once we bring out the guillotines, They will retreat to spending the rest of their lives in the bunkers they have built with their stolen wealth.
- people are turning to socialism
  Feels like they're turning more to fascism
  
  I also feel like there is always a constant portion of people who worship power and think they can squeeze a decent life out of siding with the powerful. So if there ever is any war, it definitely won't be a clear cut class war. And the billionaires will do everything in their power to make sure the war happens within the classes first.
- "Once we bring out the guillotines"
  Depends where you live.
  I hear the hardcore revolutionary libs in the US have found a much more powerful way to defeat fascism... buy nothing for 1 day.
  
  The US has a really serious problem on their hands which is that their trade war won't achieve anything. The US doesn't make anything, it famously doesn't make anything, the only reason that they trade with Canada is because Canada is close. Even then it's mostly just food stuffs which Canada can make themselves.
  But they have virtually nothing to offer internationally hence the trade deficit, that trump is so upset about, in the first place
- And who you going to put on the guillotines? You own! People are getting so blind with anger
  
  Speak for yourself

The world has been in a gigantic psychological experiment.

because armmaggeton

Because now it is affecting you personally. Before it was in the middle east or some random aftican nation where people dont speak english, and media make sure it is not in the front page. Reading some history of any conflict will show the root starting a while back but no one cares.

I think the issue in America, is that the Constitution only addressed political power, but failed to account for fiscal strength. Money is inherently a thing that manipulates the fates of individuals, companies, and nations alike. By not setting down rules, limitations, and expectations regarding economics, the Founding Fathers allowed a key form of power go unaddressed.
The vast majority of Project 2025's major backers are wealthy people, who have far beyond what any normal person can ever hope to possess. This imbalance means that workers have to sacrifice much time, money, and energy to be barely heard on a single issue, while a rich person can just hire experts to massage every aspect of their many messages and to deliver it everywhere with a mighty voice.
IMO, we will need a Constitution v2.0 that fixes not only assorted political flaws like the voting system, but also prevents wealth from being a microphone that only a few can afford.
- It's not some accident or overlook that a bunch of slavers made a pact to violently enforce their privilege. That was always the point.
  Another constitution sounds good until you realize it's going to be same kind of people making it. And the state will still be an involuntary system of violent coercion.
- The constitution isn't some Holy Document that has the power to shape reality. You can write in as many legal clauses as you like, but so long as you're allowing a small class of oligarchs to control capital, they will use that power to influence policy.
  
  I don't have the source, but I am almost certain the constitution, per the founders, was meant to be rewritten every few years...or at least edited.

That's, ironically, how the white supremacists felt all these years lol
- Why would they feel that way? Not enough privilege, racism, genocide, etc? I don't think that's how regular people are feeling.
  
  If you're genuinely curious you could experience what Fox News offers (or here in Canada, Rebel News) - for many years these platforms have placed a concerted effort into stoking either rage or fear about the most ridiculous topics. The kind of rage and fear that make white supremacists feel like their "evil" is "winning".
  Propaganda is a powerful tool, and it's wielded unceasingly by those with resources. Entire industries have come to rely on the sweet-sweet injection of Propaganda $$$, including the completely unregulated "Influencer" industry.
  Throw religion into the mix and... it can be real easy to label pretty much anything as "evil"
- Edgy

Maybe you have this filing because live is anadrome of evil.

The internet. It led to the following:
Good social change occurred very rapidly from the 1990s-2010s, causing highly motivated pushback from those who didn't like the changes
Rising wealth inequality caused by tech billionaires increased incentives and capability for a small number of extremely wealthy people to seize control of media and political power centers
Foreign dictator governments became more able to more easily spread pro-dictator propaganda
Media became more decentralized, leading to some good things but also the hijacking of our psychology to spread fear and disgust for the sake of grabbing attention
- I would just like to push back and say that the Internet was an open public project, and it has helped countless people across the world. Every single problematic tech that people are pointing to at the moment are closed-source commercial projects.
  That is Capitalism at work.

Two answers.
Thomas Picketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Century
Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine
Even reading a brief summary of the main points of both books gets you to a decent explanation.

Capitalism

Evil is relative
It feels that way to you because China/Russia are winning and you oppose them
- It seems like Russia and China are gaining in geopolitical influence as the US recedes.
  Winning isn't what I'd call that
  
  They got the US to recede, got Britain to leave the EU, and are running propaganda in the rest of the West

Well, I'd say it's because they don't even hide it anymore. They know they can do whatever they want, and get away with it.
Enshitification is a real thing, and companies and evil people are being blatant about it, because they know they don't have to hide it because they know they can't be stopped.
It sucks. I hate it. I wish we could do something about it.

Because good natured people don't want conflict so they avoid it.
Bad natured people actively seek conflict and engage with it whenever possible.
Evil never sleeps. Peace does.

I saw a chart that globally, the incumbent parties have lost more in these elections than before.
https://www.ft.com/content/e8ac09ea-c300-4249-af7d-109003afb893
I'd guess this is because things are going badly economically, so people wanted change.
- Yeah, they wanted change. But then the fascists conveniently swooped in and pretended they offered the type of change people actually wanted. (Cheap eggs, etc.)
- Also Russian has been working on promoting their hard right puppet parties globally.

there's no good or evil. those are constructs that aren't suitable to describe anything that's happening
- There are people who work to benefit others and there are people who work to benefit only themselves.
  Anyway, you should play BioShock

Because class war is being raged but most of the global north working class don't have any class consciousness. Capitalism is working on doing what it has done to the global South for decades but this time to the global North. Fascism is Imperialism turned inward. Welcome to the rest of our lives.
- What has capitalism done to the global south?
  Is that just a metaphor, or are you literally talking about Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America and Antarctica?
  Sorry, I'm just a little confused about what you mean.
  
  Global South basically just means underdeveloped/developing nations.
  Capitalism results in the rich, mostly in developed countries, extracting resources for low prices and exploiting desperate workers for low wages in developing countries. The developing countries get little in return. Some of these countries have been able to muster some protectionism to mitigate so much transfer of wealth out if their country (such as China). Developed nations have purposely kept some developing nations destabilised to maximize exploitation.

Change requires a massive push, and apparently people need to suffer much much more, to inspire that momentum.

Rampant unchecked capitalism of recent decades has created large wealth disparities akin to the earlier decades of the last century. It is no longer possible for one person in a household with a regular job to support a modest lifestyle for their family. All benefits especially medical for the whole family, being completely intertwined with the current job reduces mobility and further feeds into the wealth gap by keeping wages low. It’s easier to blame the powerless for this state of affairs than the powerful because the powerless cannot object.
The fear of the other has been accentuated by media and misinformation. Targeted algorithms feeding most of the information that is consumed has created echo chambers that reinforce existing beliefs and fears. The propaganda state has never had it easier.
The large military and police has given never before control to the state about what is allowed to be protested. Combined with the day to day struggles, it’s extremely hard to come together for what is right. The ruling class is able to maintain the fine balance between absolute misery and general dissatisfaction that it is still better to struggle through a thankless job than to say fuck it. Failures of recent large uprisings like Middle East and Hong Kong have reinforced the futility of standing up against the rulers.
Evil has many heads and there’s always one head that you can find alignment with. It could be the deregulation of businesses, lower taxes, anti abortion, racism, but as long as there’s one thing you can align on, the general sense of powerlessness makes it easier to overlook the other heads.
The line between evil and good has never been murkier, especially with globalization. If you focus on the betterment of your community, it would be considered good, but what if it leads to suffering of others outside the community. Is it also evil? What is community - is it the people in your neighborhood, your religion, your country, fellow business owners? The fuzzier these lines are, the harder it is to untangle them.
- I felt so evil this morning that I drove my car. Fuck you Nature, I'm taking climate back

So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
- And here we are Schwartzless.
- But you know what evil is also good for??
  MERCHANDISING! MERCHANDISING!!

Because the slow decay of the capitalist order that has been occurring since the neoliberal turn has reached the point where it's effects are being felt in the global North
- Just left a nearly an identical explanation. Refreshed and saw this comment. Well said. Fascism is Imperialism turned inward.
  
  Yeah, westerners who are ideologically committed to neoliberalism can no longer fully convince themselves that liberalism is The Way, The Light, and The Truth, like they used to, because the counter evidence is on their door step. So now they have to apply the political reasoning they developed watching marvel movies and reading Harry Potter to explain the current situation in terms of evil bad guys threatening the sacred status quo.

Wealth inequality caused by all the things mentioned here and more. It allows the wealthy to control narrative that is fed to the masses, control the amount of free time people have to think and control how much pressure is placed on your lives.
The free thinking world is gone.
But the '3 meals away from a revolution' is always true and the rich will always get more greedy. When everyone no longer has the ability to free themselves, that's when a lot of heads will roll.

Evil use to hide - but through Trump's no filter twitter postings, Musk's self-aggrandizing incompetence, and Russia's realization that they no longer have to hide their evil-doing, a lot of the evil these days is just out in the open.
Imagine a world where a competent president is hiding behind close doors planning a way to defund USAID and starve millions of people. Planning behind close doors cutting medicare by 1 trillion dollars, killing thousands of Americans, and using that money to fund a trillion dollar tax break for the mega rich. You wouldn't know any of that is happening.
Now it is front page news, and people are reacting by boycotting Amazon for one day on the 28th.
- Evil use to hide
  You should check out the history of the USA some time.
- I think you meant incompetent, I was a little bit confused

You probably feel that way because this is what it feels like when evil wins.

the hard answer: the voting populace is the single stupidest form of combined intelligence to ever exist, im pretty sure 3 children under the age of 7 in a room would have a higher average IQ than any state in america when measuring the voting populace.
Voting is a joke. People don't take it seriously, it's all vibes based, and those vibes are horrendously unreliable and meaningless.
the soft answer: it is, for now. It will change, just give it time. It's inevitable.
- The candidates are the joke. The system generates trash "representatives". That's a feature, not a bug. Nothing worth voting for.
- Maybe voting is all vibes because First Past The Post voting doesn't accurately represent the nation.
  
  and yet, in most cases, it pretty roughly aligns with popular vote sentiment. The only difference is that the congress would have a significantly different makeup, whether or not that changes much is a different question.
- The perspective I subscribe to is that access and abundance has outpaced the average persons ability to choose. By which I mean, their talent at choosing. An overall inability to make quality decisions. I would say the issue really grew some teeth in maybe the 50's and has been accelerating more or less exponentially. The art of exploiting this inability to choose first starts getting real traction in the evolution advertising. Getting people to buy cans of beans and cigarettes was the larval form of a much more sinister science of mass manipulation. The internet definitely threw gasoline on the fire. And now no one knows what is quality, or true, or nutritious, or sustainable, or important. The average person is completely overwhelmed and operating on a low-level fight-or-flight type reasoning. Unfortunately I don't think there is a short term solution. People need to start learning at a very young age explicitly how to not be a mark. Which is antithetical to the wealthy and politically connected people whose bread and butter is hoards of unscrupulous consumers of products and rhetoric.