Ten million can turn a person into a devil

Recently, there have been two pieces of news that are somewhat similar, which are rather thought-provoking.

The first one was reported by the Chinese news program "Tianwang". Li, in order to defraud a huge amount of insurance money (the beneficiary Li could obtain compensation of over 12 million RMB at most), lured his wife onto a boat and pushed her into the sea at a blind spot of surveillance... In July 2022, the Intermediate People's Court of Dalian, China, sentenced Li to death for the combined crimes of intentional homicide and insurance fraud.

The second one was reported by Fujian Television Station. Liu was suspected of using a wealthy woman's affection to blackmail her, involving a total of 40 million yuan.

Take a look at the balances in your WeChat and Alipay accounts, as well as the amounts shown on your salary cards. Most ordinary people work steadily, earning a few hundred or a few thousand yuan, which is just enough to maintain a basic living. Although there are a lot of people bragging about their wealth online, in real life, more than 99% of people have never even seen tens of millions of yuan.

"Earning money" and "making money" seem to have the same meaning, but I usually use "earning money" more often. The character "挣" on the left has a radical of "hand", representing that ordinary people work with their hands. This "earn" also means struggling and striving for life. Making a living has never been easy, and earning money is really hard.

As for "earn", there is a radical of "treasure" on the left. Perhaps only a few people can use it. Making money with treasures is not like struggling or striving for life. It's relatively easier and brings in more money.

When using these words, you might as well think carefully about whether your job is about "earning money" or "making money".

Hard-earned money may not be much, but it's down-to-earth. You don't have to worry about the long arm of the law or being haunted at midnight. Don't covet wealth that you don't deserve.

There is another puzzling similarity between the above two cases. The men in these two cases are undoubtedly villains, but strangely enough, there are still women who love them. How can a man who is capable of the heinous act of killing his wife still have a 19-year-old mistress? How can a despicable man who is shameless enough to demand tens of millions from his mistress still have a stable relationship with his wife?

It can be seen that a person's charm is really inexplicable. Some people don't do anything bad, but they just can't attract the opposite sex.

I believe there will surely be many self-proclaimed smart people who will summarize some nonsense like "you should keep your eyes open when interacting with others" based on this. As you experience more in life, you will find that it's impossible to really "keep your eyes open".

Bad guys usually lack creativity. Whether it's killing one's wife to defraud insurance or colluding with one's wife to cheat a mistress, these are no longer isolated cases. If you think this kind of thing is still quite novel, it means that the convolutions in your brain are as smooth as the dried tofu in Pingshan Town here. Such a brain can hardly store any information, and its capacity may be even less than that of a memo pad.

Since so many such things have happened, why can't human society prevent them?

The first reason is that people can't really "keep their eyes open". Before something happens, they can't tell whether the other person is a good person or a bad one. Second, the punishment at the legal level is bound to be lagging behind, and the deterrent effect of such punishment is very limited.

Criminals are usually not only of extremely poor character but also not very intelligent (the man in the second news is even a doctoral supervisor, yet he's still extremely stupid). They always think they can escape the long arm of the law, regardless of how many precedents there are already.

Apart from these extreme examples, there are also some combinations of men and women that, although not on the verge of violating laws and crimes, seem very abnormal to outsiders. In some of these cases, it belongs to an evil symbiosis.

For example, maggots like cesspools.

So don't try to persuade maggots to leave cesspools. They can't do without each other, and it's best for society if they are locked together.

You may think someone is very evil, and you may think someone is innocent as a victim of being exploited, but after all, you can't fully put yourself in the shoes of the people involved, right?

The environment that you think is stinky might just be sweet and indispensable to them.

All in all, a good relationship and a happy situation are not entirely the result of self-cultivation but are also more or less influenced by fate.

Song Dandan once said that you shouldn't publicly comment on your ex. Because the information you obtained during the years you were with him or her is limited.

What's more complicated is that people shape each other. He may be a scumbag in your eyes, but he might be a perfect lover in someone else's eyes. So is it that the other person is bad, or you don't deserve his good side? Who can tell?

There is no omniscient and omnipotent god in this world who can understand all the rights and wrongs you have experienced.

Even if it goes to court in the secular world, with lawyers on both sides arguing vehementmently for their clients and the judge making fair and just judgments, it's impossible to achieve a just result that satisfies everyone every time.

Therefore, what the law stipulates is just the bottom line of society. In modern society, being a law-abiding citizen is not a high requirement at all. Most people don't need to study the Criminal Law carefully. As long as they live by their simple intuitive sense of justice, they are unlikely to commit crimes.

Yesterday, it was said that there is a sentence in Liu Shen's new book: "A person with a noble character will magnify the kindness of the world towards himself." Such a person is more likely to repay kindness with greater kindness after receiving a favor, and may even receive a favor from A and repay B, thus forming a virtuous cycle of kindness. Isn't the degree of civilization in society improved bit by bit in this way?

Richard Dawkins had a wonderful discussion on the simple aspiration of "one good turn deserves another" in "The Selfish Gene". Interpersonal relationships are often reciprocal. Believing that kindness will be reciprocated and thus choosing to be kind is truly great wisdom.