this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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There isn’t a single person on Earth that I hate. There are some I dislike, and some who might genuinely be doing the world a service by dying, but I don’t hate any of them. As someone who doesn’t believe in free will, hate just isn’t an emotion that fits within my worldview. It wouldn’t make logical sense to hate someone when I don’t believe they could have been any different. Hate seems to assume a kind of agency on the other person’s part that I don’t think exists. I basically see hating a person as an equivalent to being angry at the weather.
If someone is doing a disservice to the world by dying, that means they were doing good in life. That was a good person.
You may not celebrate the death of a horrible person, which is a questionable stance in itself, but if you can't find hate in yourself when genocide is ongoing? Are you even human? Hate exists whether you like it or not.
I'm sorry, but if you can't hate hate, then you're the problem. Hate absolutely should be hated. And if you don't hate those that do such wrong, then you're culpable and deserving of hate yourself.
You seem to be interpreting my lack of hatred as indifference or approval, when in reality, it’s grounded in a very different view of human behavior - one where actions are the result of conditions and causes, not some freely chosen moral stance.
I never said I don’t recognize harm, or that I think people shouldn’t be held accountable. What I said is that hate, as an emotion, presupposes a kind of agency I don’t believe people actually have. It’s not about letting people off the hook - it’s about understanding that even the worst acts come from a long chain of causes, not spontaneous evil.
You’re of course free to feel whatever you feel. But telling me that I'm “deserving of hate” for not feeling hatred myself isn’t a moral argument - it’s just another form of the thing you’re supposedly standing against.
EDIT: Even if we set aside the question of free will, there’s still a strong case against hate purely from a pragmatic standpoint. Sure, hate can fuel action - but it also clouds judgment, makes people reactive, and often leads them to lash out rather than act with clarity. I don’t think you need to hate someone to stand against them. In fact, I’d argue you’ll probably be more effective when you stay calm, focused, and rational. You can recognize evil, resist it, and work to stop it without being consumed by it. Hate burns hot but it burns stupid.
Thats true of leaders. But as a leader, it's often beneficial to use the hate. Vlad the impaler used hate and extreme practices to instill such fear in the enemy that he is considered a defender and hero to this day.
I would say hate fueled Sherman's march and my only lament for that is that they didn't burn enough.
A lack of hatred towards hatred is indeed approval or support of hatred. You're the "it's not happening to me" person. A lack of resistance is support.