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.
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.
The CEO of Nestlé 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 Nestlé.
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.
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.
Belief is a choice, not fact. It’s fair to hate a person for choosing bigotry.
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
You’ve proved my point. You’re choosing not to believe because it’s not fact.
I don’t choose to believe facts
That’s not what I said. I said you’re choosing not to believe things which are not facts.
I’m incapable of choosing what convinces me
You have stated yourself that you are. How unfortunate that you can’t see it.
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
Everyone thinks they only let observable facts influence their beliefs
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.
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?
Wat
History
Yes. The person might be able to change, but at the moment, they’re horrible.
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
Are they still horrible people if they’ve been brainwashed by conservative propaganda all their life?
‘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
