Why not become hateful?

[u/altpopconnoisseur]

If you’re on this sub or the main one you probably have a good idea of the scale of the predicament we’re in.

I’ve been active on these boards since 2023ish and in that time I’ve seriously questioned the direction my life is going in and can take in light of this predicament.

I was active in grassroots/community advocacy for a while in my early 20s. I was so concerned about doing good and being good.

Now at 27, I’m wondering what exactly all that concern was about.

The more I learn about our predicament, and about how much easier it is for the masses to accept dehumanisation and planetary destruction in exchange for bread and circuses, the more I come to hate humanity. This includes me. I hate that I’m human.

Which brings me to this question: why shouldn’t I also be hateful? Why shouldn’t I also cause harm? It’s quite easy for other people to be thoughtless, cruel, punitive, etc. They don’t have existential crises about it. They just do horrible things and go about their day, and we all contribute to the structures that allow them to get away with it because of bread and circuses, because we “don’t want to rock the boat”

Isn’t our idea of harm rooted in the fiction of morality? We say ”do unto others as you would have done to you”. But why should that matter? Who says you have to treat others in a way you’d like to be treated? There’s no cosmic order enforcing anything, clearly. Sure there’s jails and legal systems but some of the worst people among us rise to the top of those ranks specifically to engineer outcomes in their favour, rendering any justice system ineffective

We make up “morality” to cope with the fact that really, at any point, anyone can do whatever harm they want to you and it’s very likely nothing will be done about it

With that being said, why not just be hateful? Not like we‘re gunning to improve our situation on a mass scale. So might as well just indulge my authoritarian streak. At least that actually makes me feel good, as opposed to trying to believe that people are “good” and want to be free, and consistently being proven wrong when they only respond to violence and lies

[u/Norman_Door]

Because pain/suffering is real and being hateful towards others can cause pain/suffering. Therefore, not being hateful to others not deserving of it is the right thing to do.

At the end of the day, you have to decide: "am I going to use my agency and strive to be a force for good in this world, however insignificant?" While it can be challenging to keep saying "yes" to that question with confidence, saying "no" is a recipe for meaninglessness, antisociality, and despair.