The Glade 4.0

"Hate is just repackaged fear, and if you tear away the layers of a hateful person, you'll usually find a scared little kid in there."
This... this is shockingly accurate. I used to be quite full of different hatreds, hell, I even took Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh seriously. But after a time, I realized... why do I hate X people? They're just people like me. Trying to find their way in this world. Some are better at it than me, some are not so good at it. I was afraid that my happy ending would be taken from me by someone less deserving, someone not me.

I slowly came to the realization that its not a competition. Those people shouldn't be hated for being "different". Those other people shouldn't be hated for being successful or not. Life is not a zero sum game, and you make your own happy endings. If someone else is happy, and successful in their life, they should be celebrated because that's the end goal of our existence. If someone else is not happy or not successful, we as humans should help them. Increasing happiness and understanding can only help us as a society. How does spreading fear, hatred and ignorance do that?
About the only thing I *hate* anymore, and that's not really the right word, but "ensaddens" isn't a word, so it'll do, is willful ignorance. The underlying current in our society that says "I don't know this thing, and I can't be bothered to educate myself on it to know it better." The current that says "I hate X, and nothing you can say will change my mind!". Closed mindedness, ignorance and fear are what is worthy of my "hatred" these days. With all the resources at our fingertips, refusal to learn... that's the worst thing ever.

Because I'm afraid of that. I'm afraid that the people that refuse to educate themselves, that carry on with blind, unfocused hatred on things that don't matter will become the majority, and put people in power that also hate. That our society celebrates ignorance and hatred, and therefore must be run by people that think the same as they do.

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Holy shitsnacks!

So basically you've just decided to hate something different than before.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, he's not repackaging his educated fear into an uneducated hatred. He's become aware of the dark path that type of hatred leads down and chooses to reject it and worries about those too blind to see, and those who can see but choose to mock intelligent reasoning.

Right there with you Mus, full agreement.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Basically this. And like I said, not hate, more "ensaddened".

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Holy shitsnacks!

So, when other people fear stuff it causes them to hate, but when you do it makes you sad.

Ok, if you say so.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So why do you hate?

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Holy shitsnacks!

I hate windows 10 because it took me three and a half hours to update last night with no warning of how long a download it was going to be.

Hate what?

The idea that fear leads to hate is a simplistic concept that passes for wisdom in part because Yoda said it and people still think Yoda was a font of good advice. In some cases its true, but for the most part the relationship is that of a Ven Diagram with fairly small overlap. People often hate things they aren't even remotely afraid of, and fear plenty of things there's no point in hating. I fear burning myself on the grill; I don't therefore hate to bbq.

Its an insight, sure, but a pretty trivial one in terms of life wisdom, and its most dangerous aspect is convincing yourself that you've figured this out but that you're surrounded by masses that haven't. It might be true, but they all posses their own little trivial nuggets of wisdom no better - and no worse - than this one.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Edited to better reflect your avatar.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I agree with this -- although I'm not sure "hate" is always caused by fear. There's more than one type of hatred. But it is often true.

This would be also great if it were accepted and embraced also by the socialist types who fear those who have been successful, and march on wall street screaming about the 1%. Wealth is also not a zero sum game. The general prosperity of the poorest in a strong capitalist economy follows the upward path of the wealthiest. The types of socialism these people clamor for would pull the 1% down, certainly, but they'd drag the rest of us 99% down even further. Instead of envying success, celebrate it, and follow their example.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Hippy love feats only extend to our fellow unwashed downtrodden hippies. The rules about hatred being repackaged fear go out the window when you hate rich white men. Then your hatred is a symptom of systemic racism and our need for more social justice. Because you don't really hate rich white men. Rich white men, by definition, can not be victims of anything, so that feeling you have for them must be something else.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Unfortunately, this is not what we have. We have a plutocracy, or "crony capitalism" where the ones in power don't "trickle down" to those below them they step on those below, replace the ones with ambition for less money, and do their level best to screw their workers in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Billionaires paying millionaires to pass laws and deliver rhetoric to make the middle class hate the poor.

Its super effective!

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Holy shitsnacks!

Don't they?

Even the poorest in this country live very well by the standards of most of the world. Those poor people are the ones most likely to be smoking and drinking their paycheck away.

Those claiming to stick up for the poor will turn around and try to shaft those same poor people if they're rural and white and happen to do something as unsavory as work on obtaining coal and oil for a living. Then they "need to adapt" and we can sacrifice them on the altar of environmentalism.

After all, they're rural and white and don't control many electoral votes, so they must be racists, right? Then we don't have to care about them; we can just talk about how they might elect scary republicans that will do.. well, scary things. Really, they will.

How about maybe we cut back on those tobacco taxes? After all its the poor smoking most of them, and $5 a pack is nothing to a millionaire that smokes.. but devastating to a poor person. Let's tax their addiction for government largesse, pretend its to help prevent smoking, and blame the tobacco companies. Nothing like hiding a robbery of the poor and addicted under a health concern. Same for those alcohol taxes.

Not convinced? People don't need that stuff? How about gas taxes? That means a lot in a gallon of gas to some poor bastard trying to drive to his shitty job; it means nothing to an Aston Martin driver. Oh no, wait! Roads! The environment! We can't do that!

Concern for "the poor" and about how "millionaires" and "billionaires" are screwing everyone is horseshit. It's about creating a veneer of concern while perpetuating the problems that allow people to pretend to be concerned, caring, and most of all, morally superior to those racists or rich people or whatever. It's taking just as big of a **** on the poor and calling it a brownie in the process.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."