I think you’re cherry-picking. Faith is undergoing an unprecedented decline, and has been for the last century or so; society takes time to adjust, but it’s happening. There are countries without compulsory education, but it seems to leave them worse off overall. Zero-sum competition is a commonsense outcome of evolution, but politics has matured to the point where we in the west can largely ignore it and get on with their lives (end of history). And there are enough areas where we seem luckier than one would reasonably expect. Above all, progress is happening.
As a devil I would probably try and associate more good things with atrocities, to get people to stop trying them. The holocaust puts people off reasonable eugenics; I’d make sure there was a holocaust committed by e.g. a culturally integrated organization. Or maybe try and fragment language more. Once you get people to divide into in-groups and out-groups they do the rest of the work for you.
I think you’re cherry-picking. Faith is undergoing an unprecedented decline, and has been for the last century or so; society takes time to adjust, but it’s happening. There are countries without compulsory education, but it seems to leave them worse off overall. Zero-sum competition is a commonsense outcome of evolution, but politics has matured to the point where we in the west can largely ignore it and get on with their lives (end of history). And there are enough areas where we seem luckier than one would reasonably expect. Above all, progress is happening.
As a devil I would probably try and associate more good things with atrocities, to get people to stop trying them. The holocaust puts people off reasonable eugenics; I’d make sure there was a holocaust committed by e.g. a culturally integrated organization. Or maybe try and fragment language more. Once you get people to divide into in-groups and out-groups they do the rest of the work for you.