A lot of people go one step further and justify their hate though. Preferences have real world results. An individual's actions might incur a social or financial penalty or risk on others. Some examples:
- "I hate people who listen to X music because it gets supported financially, while band that I prefer like Y are barely able to make ends meet"
- "I hate people who are fat because their poor health choices will add stress to the health care system and (in case of most health care systems) increase my health care cost burden"
- "I hate people who use X software tool; if only they used Y, the community would be larger, the amount of quality tools would go up, etc."
- "I hate people who go around begging for money X location. The presence of homeless can destroy property values, and reduce how many people come to visit local businesses, harming the local economy."
- "I hate the guys who only use girls for one night stands. It breaks their hearts and makes them less trusting and less approachable for all the guys who aren't like that."
- "I hate people who vote for political party X. If only they voted for Y, everything would be so much better in my country."
The problem is people don't go to the next step: realizing that their emotion of hate is more harmful then helpful, and seeking out more productive solutions. Hate, at best, can be used to shame people into social compliance, but in our modern world, a person can generally find a subculture where they are accepted and not shamed, which largely mitigates this utility. All that is left is the effect of hate making us less empathetic, less willing to cooperate, more predisposed to make irrational choices, more stressed and so on.
So basically, if you are hating on people, I don't hate you. I just wish you would think really carefully about what the cost and benefits of the act are for yourself and for society, and then practice managing those emotions more wisely in the future. For that reason I offer this text forth.
- "I hate people who listen to X music because it gets supported financially, while band that I prefer like Y are barely able to make ends meet"
- "I hate people who are fat because their poor health choices will add stress to the health care system and (in case of most health care systems) increase my health care cost burden"
- "I hate people who use X software tool; if only they used Y, the community would be larger, the amount of quality tools would go up, etc."
- "I hate people who go around begging for money X location. The presence of homeless can destroy property values, and reduce how many people come to visit local businesses, harming the local economy."
- "I hate the guys who only use girls for one night stands. It breaks their hearts and makes them less trusting and less approachable for all the guys who aren't like that."
- "I hate people who vote for political party X. If only they voted for Y, everything would be so much better in my country."
The problem is people don't go to the next step: realizing that their emotion of hate is more harmful then helpful, and seeking out more productive solutions. Hate, at best, can be used to shame people into social compliance, but in our modern world, a person can generally find a subculture where they are accepted and not shamed, which largely mitigates this utility. All that is left is the effect of hate making us less empathetic, less willing to cooperate, more predisposed to make irrational choices, more stressed and so on.
So basically, if you are hating on people, I don't hate you. I just wish you would think really carefully about what the cost and benefits of the act are for yourself and for society, and then practice managing those emotions more wisely in the future. For that reason I offer this text forth.