Blemish

Marcus Aurelius once wrote that the very worst a person could do in life is to make themselves into a kind of blemish upon history and the world. We do not have to think very long or hard to find contemporary examples of just such an abhorrence and regrettably misanthropic wart upon all of history and civilisation. I doubt we can ever guarantee that tyrants will never rise to power but we can certainly become much better at detecting them earlier and sending them in other less troubling or damaging directions. This could even be a valid (and admirable) application of machine learning – identify potential tyrants early in their careers and send them down less consequential paths in life.