GreyEyedGhost

Or a MAGA hat. Or a Trump card.

You're working on two flawed premises. First, that everyone is a rational actor. Second, that everyone wants to do good, or even agrees what that is.

And what if what they want is to enact violence on others?

The field of psychology has been around for about 100 years. I don't think they have all the details worked out enough to call it a science. But let's set that aside. Do you think Putin will respond to anything but whopping? Why or why not?

Google that, and let me know what it says. Also, I didn't say they should, I said they do. You could as easily ask why some people engage in criminal activity or abusive behavior, and probably get the same answers.

There's 8 billion people in this world and I can only impact a few of them. Whopping them isn't a tool I prefer or tend to use, but I also recognize that it's the only tool some on the side of behaving decently have or some people respond to.

Compassionate implies intent as well as behavior. But intent can never be really known. If correct behavior is achieved by them fearing God, loving God, compassion, or the pragmatic understanding that their behavior is going to cause damage to society and make their lives uncomfortable is pretty hard to judge from the outside, so I'll focus on the behavior. I'd prefer the more altruistic reasons, but I have only poor tools to make that assessment.

"Would the authoritarian just tell me what to do with no consideration of my preferences?"

I don't remember where I heard it first, but I've seen a number of his supporters (and Obama's detractors) get a little miffed when I said, "Remember, the president with five kids from three different women isn't the black one."

Oddly enough, if you save the image via Voyager for Android, it's perfectly viewable.

The real tragedy is that they both lasted too long.

The pragmatic part of me doesn't care how they get to the correct outcome. There are plenty of people who don't, with or without god.