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> All this to say I am very scarred of these events, because if they were so prevalent, it must be very easy to become a monster. I am just ignorant of how, yet

by hiatus 2y ago

> All this to say I am very scarred of these events, because if they were so prevalent, it must be very easy to become a monster. I am just ignorant of how, yet. Divisive rhetoric that creates "us" vs "them" groups. Then comes the dehumanization and rationalization of violence against the othered group. I recall people calling for violence against people who refused to wear masks during covid, as the most recent example that comes to mind. An environment where neighbors are incited to turn against their neighbor breeds monsters.

throw0101b 2y ago
> Divisive rhetoric that creates "us" vs "them" groups. While rhetoric can increase things, humans seem to have an inherent us-versus-them mechanism whereby clans/tribes are easily created psychologically. A couple of chapters mentioning various experiments in Ezra Klein's book: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We%27re_Polarized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We%27re_Polarized
room4 2y ago
Ironically, the actual violence was the people negligently spreading a disease that harmed the innocent people around them. There's a funny spectrum between like, someone intentionally infecting the water supply of a city with a disease as bioterrorism which is obviously a crime which society at large agrees the police to use violence against the perpetrator to stop the act from happening, arrest the perpetrator and put them in jail. And then at the other end of the spectrum is things like spreading HIV, herpes or Covid which different people have varying opinions on whether that's acceptable, bad but non-criminal or criminally harmful to the people being infected. Humans have very natural intuition around some types of harm or violence - directly observable things like punching or stabbing someone. But if the harm is more indirect and not directly observable, things like pollution or spreading disease, we don't have the same immediate fight-or-flight activation type of recognition and so we are often more lenient towards the perpetrators of those types of harm.
- deleted 2y ago
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ryandrake 2y ago
> I recall people calling for violence against people who refused to wear masks during covid Not comparable. There is "us vs them" based on identity attributes someone is born with, that they have no control over, like their skin color, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and then there is "us vs them" based on someone's deliberate choice to be anti-social, belligerent, and put others at needless risk. Neither justifies violence threats, but they are not the same thing.

by hiatus 2y ago

throw0101b 2y ago

> Divisive rhetoric that creates "us" vs "them" groups. While rhetoric can increase things, humans seem to have an inherent us-versus-them mechanism whereby clans/tribes are easily created psychologically. A couple of chapters mentioning various experiments in Ezra Klein's book: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We%27re_Polarized https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We%27re_Polarized

room4 2y ago

Ironically, the actual violence was the people negligently spreading a disease that harmed the innocent people around them. There's a funny spectrum between like, someone intentionally infecting the water supply of a city with a disease as bioterrorism which is obviously a crime which society at large agrees the police to use violence against the perpetrator to stop the act from happening, arrest the perpetrator and put them in jail. And then at the other end of the spectrum is things like spreading HIV, herpes or Covid which different people have varying opinions on whether that's acceptable, bad but non-criminal or criminally harmful to the people being infected. Humans have very natural intuition around some types of harm or violence - directly observable things like punching or stabbing someone. But if the harm is more indirect and not directly observable, things like pollution or spreading disease, we don't have the same immediate fight-or-flight activation type of recognition and so we are often more lenient towards the perpetrators of those types of harm.

deleted 2y ago
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ryandrake 2y ago

> I recall people calling for violence against people who refused to wear masks during covid Not comparable. There is "us vs them" based on identity attributes someone is born with, that they have no control over, like their skin color, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and then there is "us vs them" based on someone's deliberate choice to be anti-social, belligerent, and put others at needless risk. Neither justifies violence threats, but they are not the same thing.