08 August 2022

Which Countries Are Considered More Evil Than They Are, Or Less So?

In this context, evil refers to disregard for human rights, disregard for their own citizens' well being, authoritarianism, global scale environmental harm,  and aggressiveness in international affairs. This list is (not yet) comprehensive.

Countries that are less evil than conventional wisdom:

1. Cuba

2. Iran

3. Nicaragua

Countries that are more evil the conventional wisdom:

1. Saudi Arabia

2. United Arab Emirates

3. Hungary

4. Kuwait

Evil leaning countries correctly rated for evilness in conventional wisdom:

1. North Korea

2. Russia

3. Syria

4. Afghanistan

5. Myanmar

6. Venezuela

Some cases are particularly difficult to evaluate, and are hard to assign a single "evil index", because they are pretty good in some dimensions, and pretty bad in others. These countries include:

1. China

2. Israel

3. United States

4. Turkey

Countries that were historically quite evil, and are in a transitional period whose ultimate outlook is unclear:

1. Uzbekistan

2. Sudan

3. Somalia

4. Libya

5. Albania

Countries that aren't so much evil as in disarray:

1. Haiti

2. Honduras 

3. El Salvador

4. Belize

5. Guatemala

6. Botswana

Countries with active wars or active insurgencies in their territory (some are also on other lists)

1. Ethiopia

2. Yemen

3. Nigeria

4. Mali

5. Somalia 

6. Syria 

7. Myanmar

8. Israel

9. Phillipines

5 comments:

Guy said...

Somalia is a classic failed state and has been for so long that listing it here with 'real' states seems unfair to Somalia. What other states are as failed as Somalia?
Not sure why Libya makes the list as historically quite evil. A lot of bluff and bluster during the Khaddaffi days but only average despot trouble making.

Dave Barnes said...

What do you know about Albania that I do not?

andrew said...

Albania was at least as bad as North Korea today, if not worse, in the worst of times. It has had a rocky return to comparative normalcy (for example, no longer mostly using horse carts when everyone else was using trucks) and was hit by a major securities fraud incident that shook the economy post-Cold War, in addition to the usually corruption and "democracy" with Soviet political instincts. It seems to be improving. But, its future outlook is still, as stated, uncertain.

andrew said...

@Guy

Would you rather live in Italy or Libya in 1985? The human rights situation wasn't that great. It was more bark than bite internationally, but it had lots of vicious bark and probably sponsored some terrorism.

You don't seem to disagree that Somalia was awful. It is on the mend, but in a two steps forward, one step back kind of way.

DDeden said...

Evil is subjective. Stats don't change that. Politics is politics, grass is always greener, those that love their country hate other countries...bunch of dumb apes...