this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 month ago

The CEO of NestlΓ© has gone on record saying that he believes that all water sources should be privatized.

So, to answer your question, yes.

Though there are a plethora of stronger reasons to hate the CEO of NestlΓ©.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Belief is a choice, not fact. It's fair to hate a person for choosing bigotry.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I don't agree that belief is always a choice, in many cases people simply cannot conceive of an alternate position being the case, in my case I have no choice but to be an atheist because I can't believe in a god, I find it far too silly a notion.

bigoted beliefs are of course bad, but I don't think people choose them necessarily

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But you are making a choice: you're choosing to only let observable facts influence your beliefs. Everyone is an atheist by default, and most of them are then told to believe what they're told from birth, but at some point people make a conscious choice on how information is prioritized. Humans aren't read-only and I would say it's a safe bet that most people have the opportunity to influence their own beliefs and act accordingly. Obviously if someone is abused and doesn't develop mentally, then yeah, don't hate the person but don't necessarily give up on helping that person develop, either

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Everyone thinks they only let observable facts influence their beliefs

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You've proved my point. You're choosing not to believe because it's not fact.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I don't choose to believe facts

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's not what I said. I said you're choosing not to believe things which are not facts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm incapable of choosing what convinces me

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

You have stated yourself that you are. How unfortunate that you can't see it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago

I did not say that at all?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

A lack of education still means that a bigoted person is choosing to devalue other things.

At a certain point, theres no obligation to be hostile or dismissive of different things. You are choosing to remain bigoted, and stay comfortable with your behavioral habits.

If you are saying that some people lose the ability to become accustomed to things they are exposed to, I would agree with you. People aren't like that.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

Yes, horrible beliefs make a person horrible.

but No, I don't hate someone just because they are horrible. Horribleness is not an immutable property. People are horrible because they lack the ethical skills to be better, and those ethical skills can be taught, including the ability to examine and reject horrible beliefs.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I used to think that believes really don't matter as long as the person doesn't act on it, but almost all believes shape who we are. It starts with little comments and evolves into actions. It doesn't have to be that way if people acknowledge harmful ideas, but if you let someone believe that women are worthless or that their race makes them superior for long enough they will become a bad person.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Before 2016, for example, we used to ignore a lot of conservative blustering as just political posturing or not worth attention because they could never do anything about it. Then Trump takes office and suddenly everyone with these shitty beliefs feels empowered to act on them.

People who have shitty beliefs are just waiting for those beliefs to be validated by someone in power so they can quit masking and act on them.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

All of them. Beliefs are what makes a person good/bad. Any bad actions come from those bad beliefs, but belief must exist first.

Let me give a very simplistic example. Most of us agree that murder is bad. In order for someone to commit murder they must first believe there are some cases where killing another person is justified or even desirable specifically for them. And not commonly agreed on ones like self-defense.

We even encode this difference in laws. Killing with intention is called "murder", while if it's done unintentionally it's a lesser change of "manslaughter". Belief is what decides severity of the action.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

Neither really. Sort of.

There are certainly inherently repugnant beliefs, but beliefs in and of themselves are harmless - they're just a particular pattern of firing neurons in a brain. They literally cannot bring harm to others just in and of themselves.

The thing that makes some beliefs horrible is not the mere holding of them, but the things one who holds them is likely to do. It's those acts that are the real evil - the beliefs are just a foundation, or a trigger.

Now, all that said, I would hazard that it's exceedingly rare at best (and arguably impossible) for anyone to hold noxious beliefs without them in some way affecting their behavior, so the mere holding of noxious beliefs can certainly serve as a justification for the conclusion that the person in question is in fact horrible. Still though, to be (perhaps overly) precise, I'd say that it's not the belief itself that makes them a horrible person, but merely that the belief makes it quite likely that they'll act in ways that make them (or reveal them to be) horrible people.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Yes. The person might be able to change, but at the moment, they're horrible.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

If you believe that any human being deserves lesser treatment or fewer rights than their peers, you're a horrible person. But you aren't irredeemable and you can become a not horrible person.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, your beliefs shape how you act, so shitty beliefs will make you a shitty person. Not shitty all the time, but shitty often enough that anyone can point at the person and see it's mainly due to the belief.

Some examples: racists, fascists, ancaps

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Are they still horrible people if they've been brainwashed by conservative propaganda all their life?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

'horrible' is not a useful metric for human beings. It's entirely subjective. If you want to define it as their net impact on the world (still pretty vague), then yes - negative actions are not counterbalanced by hypothetical good intentions

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

I think it's actions that make a person horrible. You can believe what you like, but as long as you keep those thoughts sealed up in that fetid dome of yours, we're cool.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well, yesterday a cashier decided it was a good idea to tell me, a hippie looking transwoman, that she's not racist, but what is Turkey doing in European football? And yeah she immediately crossed that threshold and went on my asshole list.

Of course I can come up with a gazillion excuses for why she said that. She doesn't know our own history. She doesn't know geography. She's just trying to fit in to her social group. I can go on and on. But still, what she is saying is damaging on a purely racist basis. She is old enough to realize that.

However, I wouldn't use the word hate. I know what you mean, and that's what I am responding to rn, but I don't genuinely want to hate anyone. Hate is more corrosive to the vessel than that which it is poured upon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The history of pillaging and raping Serbians for 500 years? Or the part where Turkey’s land mass only covers about 3% of European territory?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Ionian Revolt, if we are just shouting historic events at each other?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Intentionality is important. If they hold a belief as a means to a ruinous conclusion, I wouldn't blame you if you end up hating the person.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Well, yeah, a fascist is a horrible person, and so on. But I don't think "horrible person" is a particularly useful or meaningful category. I don't care if you're a good or bad person; I care what you're doing, what effect you have on other people and on society at large, and if the answers to those questions are negative, is there anything that can be done about it? If a fascist can be reformed, then we should do whatever we can do make that happen. If they're a lost cause, well... I like to believe that no one is a completely lost cause. The solution if someone is truly a lost cause is not particularly nice or humane.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Most people can change their beliefs. However, we don't always have the time, and we aren't ever obligated to entertain stupid beliefs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

people define themselves with their actions. so I will totally hate the people based on how they define themselves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Hate someone for their actions.

Be suspicious of people for their beliefs.

Avoid people if their beliefs are so concrete and premeditative that you believe they will turn their bad beliefs into actions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I had a friend who was a great friend in so many ways, she was clever and very helpful when I needed anything, also would ask me for the same when she needed help. She told me once that it's way better to kill someone else, than yourself, because then you have time to repent before you die. What a horrible belief! But it's not like she actually went around killing people, it was hypothetical.

I don't have the answer but the belief did not make her act in any terrible way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Actions make a person horrible. Beliefs lead to a person’s actions. So if one holds horrible beliefs, it’s likely they will perform horrible actions β€” thus a horrible person.

The β€œhate the sin, not the sinner” is nonsense. I can absolutely hate the sinner if an action they commit is immoral, unethical, and/or damages other people. However, there are very few people in this world that I would say I hate.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

What about Darth Vader

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Holding a belief and acting on said belief are very different things.

There are crazies who believe certain types of people they don't like should be exterminated, but so long as they don't act on those beliefs I don't consider it horrible or immoral.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

That lies in the reasoning for their conclusion, not what they adhere to itself. You cannot hold a negative quality against someone if it was duped upon them, but it's not like you can't if that part of them is pre-existing.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 month ago

The only irredeemable people are those that don't return their shopping carts.