ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Ponerology

Ponerology is a very big and complicated word that talks about the study of evil or bad things that people do. Sometimes people do things that hurt others, make them sad, or make them scared. Ponerology helps us to understand why people do these bad things and how we can stop them from happening.

Imagine a playground where all the kids are playing together and having fun. But then one kid comes and starts hitting other kids, taking their toys, and making them cry. That's not a nice thing to do, right? If this keeps happening, the playground won't be a happy place anymore. Ponerology helps us study why some kids might act this way and how we can teach them to play nicely with others.

Sometimes people do bad things because they have something wrong in their brains or something bad happened to them in their life that made them angry or sad. This can make them want to hurt other people. Ponerology helps us understand how we can help these people and make them better so they can stop hurting others.

People who study ponerology are really smart and know a lot about why people do good and bad things. They use this knowledge to make the world a better and safer place for everyone to live in.
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