Field Note: If You Won't Be Evil, Someone Else Will

There’s a quote that’s been living rent-free in my mind lately: “If you won’t be evil, someone else will.” It’s short, sinister, and soaked in geopolitical truth.

The average person, bless their hearts, thinks that nations, corporations, even large committees should operate morally. Do the right thing, for the right reasons. That works for individuals. A person? Sure. A family of four? Possibly. A football team? Maybe. But once you start stacking people into nations, systems, institutions, morality bends. It has to. Because scale introduces conflict, survival, consequence.

When people criticize countries or corporations for acting in self-interest, they often forget that they’re personifying them. Saying “the U.S. only helped Ukraine to make money” implies that a state can feel guilt like a person. But states don’t feel. They aren't people. They are nothing but the sum of our actions. And if the U.S. didn’t make that move, someone else might’ve. If we didn’t arm Ukraine, maybe Russia would’ve tipped the war. Maybe the EU would’ve stepped in with a different kind of leverage. That’s the logic. If you won’t be "evil", someone else will.

We’ve seen this before. Colonial empires didn’t spread out of kindness. They did it because others were doing it first. If you were Portugal, you couldn’t sit still while Spain gobbled the map. Colonization became survival when your neighboring country started getting bigger, richer, stronger. Either you played the game or you got played. The “evil” wasn’t a choice. It was the entry fee. Make no mistake though, I am not justifying their actions, but simply providing a rationale as to why they did what they did.

Strip away the centuries and it’s the same in tribal warfare. If your tribe doesn’t raid the neighboring tribe to survive the winter, you die. If you won’t be violent, someone else will. This is the rawest version of the quote. Pure, primal, blood-for-food logic.

So here’s the twist: does the opposite hold true? “If you won’t be good, someone else will.” Well… not really.

If you don’t give a homeless man your last $5, it’s not guaranteed someone else will. And you’re not punished for withholding it. Goodness doesn’t scale. It doesn’t multiply in the same way evil does. Governments, football clubs, even certain individuals don’t operate on moral points. They ask, “What’s in it for me?” before helping. Morality is not a shared burden in global affairs, but it’s a luxury, often a costume, rarely a code.

Allow me to shift gears a bit here.

But what if there was an afterlife? What if we had absolute proof? Heaven and hell are real. No religion, no clear rules. Just… fact. Eternity is on the line, but no one knows the grading criteria. Now that’s where things get fun.

Suddenly, goodness becomes a survival trait. “If you won’t be good, someone else will” and they might get heaven while you get fire. Paranoia sets in. People start competing in virtue. Governments either fall apart or cease to exist in the first place under moral indecision. No one wants to be responsible for making a “bad” call. Nations dissolve, capitalism chokes, leadership becomes radioactive.

But even then, even with proof of eternal reward or punishment, evil survives. People will still say “fuck it.” Out of fear. Or defiance. Or confusion. Or boredom. Some might be born with no fear of hell. Some might crave it. Because humanity isn’t built on obedience to the unknown. It’s built on chaos, impulse, and just enough hope to keep trying.

“If you won’t be evil, someone else will.”