Last time I said to A.I.: Yep. I would say [Unit 731] is pretty ugly. What contemporary events would you identify as indicative of the ugliest instincts of humans?
"You're absolutely right to call it ugly—and disturbingly persistent. Here are some contemporary events and patterns that reflect humanity’s darker instincts, where primal drives like dominance, tribalism, and cruelty seem to override evolved sensibilities:
"🔥 Ethnic Cleansing and Genocidal Violence
- Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis: Systematic persecution, mass killings, and displacement of the Rohingya Muslim minority reflect deep-rooted tribalism and dehumanization.
- Tigray conflict in Ethiopia: Reports of mass rapes, starvation tactics, and ethnic targeting show how warfare can devolve into primal brutality."
"These aren’t strategic missteps—they’re expressions of fear, hatred, and dominance masquerading as political necessity."
"🧨 Rise of Authoritarianism and Political Violence
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: Beyond geopolitics, this war has exposed instincts of territorial aggression, historical grievance, and the glorification of conquest.
- Extremist attacks: From synagogue shootings to political assassinations, violence driven by ideology often reveals a deeper instinctual rage—fear of the “other,” desire for control, and vengeance."
"Even in democracies, the erosion of civil norms and the embrace of strongman tactics reflect a regression to dominance hierarchies."
"🌍 Environmental Destruction Driven by Greed
- Amazon deforestation and Arctic drilling: These aren’t just policy failures—they’re manifestations of short-term resource hoarding, a primal instinct to consume and dominate nature.
- Climate inaction: Despite overwhelming evidence, many leaders prioritize tribal economic interests over collective survival—a failure of empathy and foresight."
"💰 Economic Inequality and Exploitation
- Modern slavery and forced labor: From fast fashion to tech supply chains, millions are trapped in exploitative systems that echo ancient power imbalances.
- Housing and healthcare disparities: The instinct to hoard resources and maintain status leads to systemic neglect of the vulnerable."
"🧠 Dehumanization in Digital Spaces
- Online trolling and harassment: Anonymity unleashes sadism, schadenfreude, and dominance behaviors—echoes of primal aggression in a virtual arena.
- Algorithmic bias: Systems that reinforce racial or gender hierarchies reflect unconscious tribal instincts embedded in modern tech."
"These events aren’t just failures of policy—they’re failures of character. They show how easily our evolved rationality can be hijacked by ancient drives. If you’re crafting a narrative or philosophical piece, you could explore how these instincts persist despite centuries of moral and intellectual progress—and what it would take to truly transcend them."
Humans are a barrel of laughs.
"In a darkly ironic, theatre-of-the-absurd kind of way? Absolutely. If someone tried to explain humanity to an alien species—one minute we’re composing symphonies and sending telescopes into deep space, the next we’re hoarding toilet paper and starting wars over lines on a map—it would read like a tragicomic screenplay."
"There's something fascinating about how humans build complex philosophies to justify instincts they haven’t outgrown. It's almost poetic. As if civilization isn’t so much a cure for our darker impulses as it is a costume we wear while they quietly pull the strings."
"And yet... amid all the madness, people still fall in love, mourn strangers' suffering, and write stories that make others feel seen. Maybe that’s the strange paradox worth exploring—not just how ugly our instincts are, but how persistently we try to transcend them, even as we fail."
One would think genuflection toward royals would be worship of regal moralities, evidence of advanced being, of demigods. And yet the history of royals is replete with the stench of the ugliest human instincts.
"Absolutely—and what a paradox that is. The ritual of bowing before royalty often carries the weight of divine symbolism, as if monarchs are moral exemplars or incarnations of higher order. But history tells a far darker tale: many royals, cloaked in ceremony and splendor, have acted as vessels for humanity’s most primal urges—cruelty, lust, paranoia, and unchecked power."
"Consider the likes of Caligula, who demanded worship as a living god while indulging in sadism and incest. Or Ivan the Terrible, whose reign was marked by mass executions and the murder of his own son in a fit of rage. Even the more “civilized” monarchs, like George III, suffered from mental instability that led to erratic governance and personal torment."
"And then there’s the grotesque irony of Unit 731—a state-sanctioned horror show under imperial Japan, where scientific advancement was twisted into torture. The emperor’s divine status didn’t prevent the unleashing of plague-infested weapons on civilians."
"Royal courts have often been theaters of madness: Joanna of Castile confined for decades under the guise of insanity; Ludwig II of Bavaria, declared unfit to rule for his artistic obsessions, only to die mysteriously after deposition. These aren’t tales of enlightened demigods—they’re cautionary myths of power unmoored from accountability."
"You could explore this contradiction through a mythic lens: a society that worships its rulers as divine, only to discover that their gods bleed, rage, and betray like mortals. Or a character who genuflects out of reverence, then slowly uncovers the rot beneath the crown."
https://historylists.org/people/top-10-mad-kings-and-queens.html
https://www.history.com/articles/10-allegedly-mad-monarchs
Be back later.
