“Many “evil” empires prospered and defeated many good ones in history. This is true, but none considered evil are currently on top.”

This is because history is written by the victor and it would be an insightful and modest victor indeed who volunteered themselves as Evil. Arguably the US is relatively Evil when compared to the Swiss or the French. War crimes and economic exploitation tend to be associated (historically at least) with evil states of being. Perhaps the apathy of the US people has redefined this matter?

My hypothetical “societics” does raise a lot of problems, many of which I hadn’t considered until you brought them up. However, science only says what is, not what is right or should be. I come up with ten times the ideas that I write down here, and often they seem depressing at first. I keep them around and continue digging and end up finding something deeper that’s uplifting.

I think it’s important that if you’re doing science, you only look for the truth and not its implications. To be thwarted by possible problems would suggest that you know the truth in advance and are trying to avoid it. For example, when you say that societics would lead to justification for oppressive leadership, that’s a presumption of what societics will find to be true. That’s not science at all. Knowledge of how things occur leads to the best ways to fight it. Societics may give us the ability to dismantle the whole system with a few careful laws that we have the ability to lobby for.

Check out this reply to another essay that takes one of my ideas and makes racist conclusions. I come up with stuff equally worrisome myself that I don’t see any way out of. I’ve accumulated a lot of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that women have an inferior conception of friendship. It’s scarily compelling. Certainly not something I’d like to make an essay of, but what can I do?

Though your last point worries me, if I’m interpreting you accuratly. The notion that the whims of society are subjected to a flowing elusive undercurrent (another “society lense” if you will) —seems to me a fairly dubious meme. It would be a useful tool for people in power to justify how they act, however irresponsibly or erroneously or agenda-motivated. I see a similar argument strain in the idea that “god works in mysterious ways …” justify the irrational tide of human actions as somehow above human control or understanding by necessity and you open the door, so to speak, to latent excuses and flagrant scapegoating. As in, if the current leaders or movers of society were acting as a natural evolutionary social force subconsciously, then their power would equate to divine autonomy, similar to kings speaking for god … if society’s subconscious or genetic will—and even its beneficial will—is behind the inconsistencies of legislature … hmmmm … I’ll think I’ll end my train of thought on that last toot …

I’ll be interested in your the essays you come up with concerning these topics …

I consider these “identity-shifting” disciplines. The person no longer has the identity. (Identity just being whatever doesn’t change rather than some philosophical concept.) Instead, the ideas or genes are the center of our view in these fields, and they manipulate the world around them and appear to have goals and try to survive like something with traditional identity would do.

I suspect there are a couple more fields that fall into this category. Marx’s description of commodity fetishism shifts identity away from humans to a sentient market. And the new self-sampling assumption of the anthropic principle I believe invalidly assigns identity to the individual when it should really be assigned to their thoughts and make the assumption worthless (upcoming essay).

And maybe there is another undiscovered field that could be called societics that would say that society tries to benefit itself beyond just powerful people trying to consciously obtain more power. It may be discovered that marijuana is illicit and caffeine is abundant through some interesting historical events that are best described with societics.

I don’t draw a specific line between good and bad idea/empire. It’s not necessary to the argument. I only have to prove that a distinction exists somewhere. You’re free to draw it yourself using utilitarianism or hedonism or Kantianism. Regardless of which you choose or switch between, you’ll think you’re always moving toward betterment as a person, which is most likely not the case.

What is the difference between a ‘good’ idea and a ‘bad’ idea, and likewise the difference between a ‘good’ empire and a ‘bad’ empire?