Srd on CE characters:

Chaotic Evil, “Destroyer”

A chaotic evil character does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. […] If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal.

Evil is not a religion or a life philosophy in third edition anymore. A CE character does not need to commit evil for the sake of evil, they need just to be ‘out for whatever [they] can get’. Think about the typical CE goblins.

It’s only ‘real evil’ if it is done for the sake of evil itself? Thats a pretty hot take.

Benefit or harm to random others is an irrelevant side effect.

This in itself is evil, because it puts the interests of others below your own. The old school characters were ‘neutral’ because they either still cared about someone in the end (even if it was their friends only), because they still drew a line somewhere when exploiting others, but mostly because they existed in the same books as comically evil kill-everyone villains and demons and it was easy say “well they are not as evil as Yeenoghu, so neutral it is”

social climbing boot licker

This one would not necessarily be chaotic, after all a social hierarchy is still a form of order. It would depend on whether they truly believe that they have a “place” in the hierarchy where they belong, or whether they see it just as a means to an end.

Evil in the context of modern d&d is selfishness, putting your own interests above others