Why Is Evil More Charismatic than Good?
The Gates Conspiracy Theory
I heard a conspiracy theory that Bill Gates is trying to use vaccines to depopulate the world. I think the idea was that vaccines kill people, Gates knows this, and he's pure evil, so that's why his foundation is so eager to fund vaccines. This was supported by a speech in which Gates said that the world was headed up to 9 billion population, but that "if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent". (See the Snopes page on this: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/.)
Obviously, this was an insane theory. Gates' actual plan was to reduce child mortality, i.e., save the lives of millions of children. When child mortality drops, people start having fewer children. Thus, population growth actually declines overall. (This is well-known to demographers.) That's why his remark made sense.
But it struck me that that theory would resonate with people. Since he retired from Microsoft, Bill Gates has dedicated himself to helping the less fortunate. His foundation has literally saved millions of lives. Their vaccine program in particular has probably saved 7 million people. When Gates started his foundation, he was the richest man in the world. He could have taken his money and bought a private island, or whatever extravagant thing he wanted, and lay on the beach all day sipping Mai Tais for the rest of his life -- which is what a lot of humans would have done if they suddenly had $80 billion. Instead, he decided to use it to fight poverty and disease.
I'm aware, by the way, that Gates was a cutthroat businessman when he ran Microsoft, which is how he got so rich to begin with. But before you consider attacking him, just how many lives have you saved? And how many people in the history of the world have ever done as much good as Bill Gates?
So, that's why I found it striking that there was this theory painting Bill Gates, of all people, as some kind of diabolical villain, plotting to murder people all over the world -- and that that theory would sound plausible to people, or at least that they would take pleasure in spreading it. That's his reward for trying to do good.
The Charisma of Evil
At first, you might suspect that this is just the effect of general resentment for the rich, resentment for success. But contrast the conspiracy theories surrounding another putative billionaire, Donald Trump. According to the QAnon conspiracy theory, there is a huge cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, including Hilary Clinton, Obama, and George Soros. The hero of the conspiracy theory is Donald Trump, who is secretly working to bring down the pedophiles.
I found that striking too. Of course, there's the general absurdity and childishness of the whole thing, the irrationality of believing wild claims with no evidence, etc. But that's not my topic here. What I want to draw attention to here is the judgment of character implied in the conspiracy theories. I think the same people who like the Gates conspiracy theory also like the QAnon theory. Their character judgments seem to me to be exactly backwards.
This is, on its face, odd. I don't think these are difficult judgments. At least, Trump's character is not difficult to evaluate, as he makes no effort to hide it. It doesn't take any sophistication to see that Bill Gates is a better person than Donald Trump. Why would people cast Gates as a supervillain and Trump as a hero?
Now, you might say these are isolated cases, and in fact there is plenty of hate for Trump out there. Fair enough. But there are many real-world villains who are revered as heroes. Genghis Khan, who in his time murdered something close to a tenth of the entire world, is revered in Mongolia as a great leader.
Think about the other supervillains of history -- government or religious leaders guilty of mass murder have often attracted millions of fanatical followers ready to kill and die for them. Or think about the cult leaders who are obviously (that is, it's obvious to people outside the cult) terrible people.
Great philanthropists, on the other hand, do not get such fanatical followers.
Why?
That's the phenomenon I'm referring to in the title. Why are so many people so much more attracted to horrible people than to good people?
Now, obviously there are many people who realize that Bill Gates is better than Trump, that Genghis Khan was bad, etc. But on the face of it, you'd expect it to be almost everyone. Why is there any significant number of people who have radically backwards judgments of the character of public figures?
Here are some hypotheses (these may overlap with each other):
Many people cannot understand genuinely benevolent motives. They hear Gates saying that he wants to save poor children, and they can't understand how that could be true, because they can't imagine having such a desire. Therefore, they mistrust him, and they assume he must have some nefarious secret motive. In general, they distrust precisely the good people.
Aside: In class, I once gave the example of being offered $20k to commit a murder. Obviously, you wouldn't even consider it. One student spoke up and said that if it was $1 billion, he was sure everyone would take it. I found that a little shocking. I would have assumed that most normal people would not consider it for one second. This made the point that ordinary people may be more horrible than you realize.
People can't identify with nerds, or just don't like them, and therefore mistrust them. (Of course, it is mainly nerds who are the best people and who are moving society forward.)
Bad people often highly confident, with dominant personalities. They talk smoothly, forcefully, always seeming to know what needs to be done without any doubt. Other people are attracted to this. These traits may correlate with being evil, though, because:
The smoothest talkers are people who don't give a shit about anyone else. It's because they don't care about you that they are never nervous and they never question whether they're entitled to impose their will. (Think about how you would not feel nervous addressing an audience of dogs. That's how bad people feel about you.)
The people who project the highest confidence are people who are dogmatic (like religious fanatics), or who don't care whether their claims are true or their plans justified.
Followers mistake these things for signs that the person is incredibly knowledgeable and infallible, when in fact the person just doesn't care about being right -- and hence is probably incredibly unreliable.
Many people share the values of evil leaders. For example, they hate foreigners, so when they see a leader who hates foreigners, they conclude that that leader is "good" in general. The actually best people aren't recognized as such because they don't share the corrupt values of a large portion of the masses.
The need for drama: Maybe people just like to be told a good story. Not a plausible story, but one that is good as a story. Dramatic, entertaining. Consider that the most realistic movies are not the ones people most like to watch. Often, it is the incredibly improbable twists that make stories entertaining. (My rule of thumb for solving a TV crime: the crime was committed by the least plausible suspect.) So maybe the attraction of the Bill Gates conspiracy theory actually lies partly in its implausibility. It's so much more amazing and fun than the boring theory that Gates is just vaccinating kids to prevent them from getting diseases.