Top 10 Ways To Unleash Your Inner Evil

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Top 10 Ways to Unleash Your Inner Evil

Whitson Gordon
10/25/14 11:00AM

“Evil” is a complex thing. Sometimes evil is justified, other times knowing evil is just the
best way to fight it. Here are 10 things that clearly fall under the banner of “evil,” but are
worth knowing how to do.

We’ve been featuring less-than-moral hacks in our annual evil week for a few years
now, and we’ve racked up quite a few, so if you haven’t been keeping up, here’s a
roundup of our best “evil” life hacks. Just remember: Knowing evil means knowing how
to beat it, so use your powers for good.

10. Lie

Sometimes, lying is justified—like if you’re doing it to keep an important secret or if


you’re trying to avoid burning a bridge. Sometimes it’s bad, but relatively harmless, like
sounding intelligent or getting a small discount on movies, student products, out of
warranty repairs, and other such things. Whatever your feelings, however, knowing how
to lie can make you a lot better at detecting those lies in others, and even help you get
the truth out of them. You may not be able to pass a polygraph test, but being a good
liar is a good skill to have, evil or not.

9. Cheat

People cheat. It happens. But depending on the circumstance, it isn’t always a bad
thing. Other times, its downright evil. We’ve showed you tricks from all across this
spectrum, from cheating at video games to circumventing Wi-Fi timeouts, getting around
paywalls, getting the best seat on a plane, or getting the best price online. Use your
tricks wisely, though—if you rely on cheating too much, you’ll never be able to get stuff
done when cheating isn’t an option.

8. Steal

Picasso once said “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” You may not be able to
apply that logic to stealing the air out of someone’s tires, but you could perhaps apply it
to stealing a coworker’s idea and passing it off as your own. And I don’t think I need to
mention BitTorrent and Usenet, two of the greatest (but most oft-used for stealing)
services on the web. The best thing to steal, though? Your own stuff, so you can know
how to keep it all secure.

7. Manipulate

Ever feel like you aren’t persuasive enough, or that you can’t get people to do what you
want? Maybe it’s time to turn to more evil persuasion techniques. We’ve shared a few
tricks that’ll help you manipulate people, but reverse psychology can also go a long way
when it comes to planting ideas in people’s minds. None of these are particularly new
tricks, either—they’ve been used by everyone from evil dictators to parents for years. Of
course, if you’d rather manipulate people without abandoning your ethics completely,
there are ways around that too.

6. Invade

Privacy is dead these days. If you want to truly protect yours, it helps to know the best
tricks privacy invaders are using—whether that’s stalking you online, digging through
your trash, snooping on your phone, breaking into your computer, or hacking your entire
network. And once you get there, you should know how they might use that information
against you, too.

5. Be Lazy

Okay, being lazy isn’t exactly evil, but it’s still viewed as a negative characteristic. But
being lazy can actually make you more efficient. So it may be necessary to master the
art of looking busy or sleeping at work to please the higher-ups while you recharge your
batteries. Obviously, you can go overboard with this, but with the right strategy, laziness
can actually be productive

4. Get Angry

Sometimes, getting truly pissed off can do good things—like help you achieve hard
goals or be a more effective complainer. Other times, venting frustration will only make
your anger worse. So don’t be afraid to get angry, but make sure you manage that
seething rage productively—like using text expansion to make quick work of assholes.

3. Infiltrate

Ever since you were a kid, you’ve probably enjoyed the rush of being somewhere you
weren’t allowed. Maybe it’s for a legitimate reason (like sneaking into a private pool on a
really hot day) or maybe it’s just the rush (like being at an exclusive party), but either
way, there are always ways to sneak in. All it takes is a little research and a bit of social
engineering. Of course, if you’re really devious, you could learn to pick locks or steal
some passwords, but that’s bound to get you in a little more trouble than playing dumb
and sneaking in.

2. Disappear

Being anonymous isn’t evil on its own, but coupled with other less-than-pious activity, it
allows you to get away with an awful lot. When it comes to online activity, you have a lot
of ways to stay anonymous: private browsing, proxy servers, VPNs, disposable email
addresses, all the way to creating an entirely new identity. Of course, if you really want
to take it to the next level, you could actually disappear and ditch big brother forever.

1. Just Be a Jerk

Still not feeling evil enough? Well, then it’s time to just start being a jerk to everyone—
that oughta cement your reputation as a villain. Cut in line. Talk at the theater. Speed on
the freeway and don’t pay that ticket. Teach your chronically late friends a lesson
(unless that’s you). Blackmail deadbeats. By the end of the week, you shouldn’t have
any problem getting that invitation to the evil league of evil you’ve been waiting for.

Thanks for all the great Evil Weeks, everyone. See you next year!

Lifehacker’s Weekend Roundup gathers our best guides, explainers, and other posts on
a certain subject so you can tackle big projects with ease. For more, check out our
Weekend Roundup and Top 10 tags.

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