Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by empath75 | Hacker News Reader

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It’s a great story but it’s almost certainly too good to be true. There were a whole lot of things along this vein showing how good people can be manipulated to put innocent people into gas chambers as part of the restoration of Germany as part of the ‘free world’

The truth is that people aren’t good, and a lot of them would love to put people in gas chambers and all it takes is the people in power allowing them to do it. No manipulation required. The Nazis were not evil geniuses that figured out how to twist the good intentions of people into evil ends. They were brutal, moronic sociopaths that allowed the natural hateful tendencies of people to flourish.

It’s a dangerous myth to believe that democracy and freedom is the natural state of man and that chaos and destruction is the aberration. It’s precisely the opposite.

Democracy and peace and freedom are states that one has to continuously work for and make sacrifices to sustain. The us is learning that the hard way right now.

It doesn’t take a genius to destroy democracy. It just takes one hateful idiot in charge who allows and encourages hate and violence to flourish.

Well said. The "Human Animal" has a "dark side" which only needs a suitable environment where it is condoned without repercussions for it to flourish. In a small group (eg. a Village) since every person is personally identifiable these "animal" tendencies can be kept in check by a suitable environment. But in a larger group (eg. a City) because of the power of anonymity rules can be broken without repercussions. "Cyber Bullying" is another very good example. "Normal" people say the vilest of things due to the psychological distance involved and lack of personal repercussions on the Internet.

In a way, i think B.F.Skinner's "Behaviorism/Operant Conditioning" was exactly right as regards "Human Nature" but sadly people don't want to give up their utopian fancies.

> The truth is that people aren’t good, and a lot of them would love to put people in gas chambers and all it takes is the people in power allowing them to do it.

Is this a fact, or a theory?

If it's a fact, are you able to convince a very open minded person like me of it?

There are several decades of sociological research on similar topic.s If you are interested, the following book is a good introduction with extensive references: https://www.theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-bo...

One of the most startling relevations (to me) was that you don't need to be a "bad" person in order to do things one could consider immoral. All it takes is an immoral leader who is able to exploit certain personality traits and convictions that can be found in many of us.

Even though this text was written in 2005, it provides an explanatory framework for things that are more relevant today than ever. It's worth a read.

Fact.

All you need to do is look at the horrors of various "Ethnic/Communal Cleansing/Riots" etc. in various countries across the world. Eg. 1) Ethnic cleansing during breakup of Yugoslavia 2) Communal Riots in some of the countries of South Asia etc. In many cases it was literally neighbour-vs-neighbour all because the environment changed to expose and sanction to act on various fault lines eg. ethnic/linguistic/religious etc.

That does seem fairly reasonable, thanks.

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