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Moderator Guidelines
To say that Hitler wasn't human is to pretend that no human could ever do the same, making way for another human to step up and do the same.
Accepting that Hitler was human means putting processes in place to prevent another human from doing the same.
And to take it a step further: recognize that everyone in Nazi Germany was human. Humans built the gas chambers and the crematoriums. Humans designed the walkways to the gas chambers to look like a normal pathway to a shower facility so the victims wouldn’t panic, as they had at earlier tests.
Humans architected the whole damn thing. Not just a few. It was thousands of people working throughout the Nazi regime. To fully acknowledge their humanity is to recognize that all of us (given a bad enough set of circumstances) are capable of participating in horrific crimes. When dehumanization is widespread and brutality is normalized, we suppress or even lose our moral centre.
Some people find this fact so horribly unpleasant to contemplate that they go to great lengths to deny it. They must have been monsters, psychopaths, deviants. No, what was wrong was that they were in the throes of ideology. Recognize for yourself the seductive and dangerous power of ideology.
everyone in Nazi Germany was human
So is every MAGA. In exactly the same way.
When we are serious about fixing America, we will have a credible program of de-Nazification
Ding ding ding ding
I seriously hate this debate for the sole reason that FAR too many people take, "don't dehumanize" to mean, "you cannot do 'bad' things to 'bad' people, period." That is a fucking STUPID position to hold, and again, far too many people view, "do not dehumanize" to mean, "you would become a Nazi if you said punching Nazis is good."
Yes, we must remember every human is a human. Good job with the tautological obvious facts of reality! We must also remember many humans betray humanity and do not deserve honor or respect. Sometimes, they don't even deserve life.
It is wholly about how you judge someone else and over what criteria, not about some mystical concept of togetherness. "Dehumanize" is far too generic of a term to create absolute rules with like this. It's just difficult to communicate an exact interpretation with. (see: the many interpretations people are assuming in the rest of the comments)
Look up the trial of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz.
For what he did, there would have been every justification to shoot him in the head and leave his body in a ditch on the side of the road. But instead, we put him on trial, and we got the following statements out of the guy:
My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell, I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz, I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the 'Third Reich' for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done. I ask the Polish people for forgiveness. In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what human kindness is. Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane treatment which I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me. May the facts which are now coming out about the horrible crimes against humanity make the repetition of such cruel acts impossible for all time.
...and (in a letter to his wife before his execution):
Based on my present knowledge I can see today clearly, severely and bitterly for me, that the entire ideology about the world in which I believed so firmly and unswervingly was based on completely wrong premises and had to absolutely collapse one day. And so my actions in the service of this ideology were completely wrong, even though I faithfully believed the idea was correct.
...and (in the same letter, to his children):
Keep your good heart. Become a person who lets himself be guided primarily by warmth and humanity. Learn to think and judge for yourself, responsibly. Don't accept everything without criticism and as absolutely true... The biggest mistake of my life was that I believed everything faithfully which came from the top, and I didn't dare to have the least bit of doubt about the truth of that which was presented to me. ... In all your undertakings, don't just let your mind speak, but listen above all to the voice in your heart.
We wouldn't have any of that if we had treated Höss like an animal, rather than a human being.
Yes. I never said to treat them like a rabid dog coming at you. (unless they are coming at you, of course)
Like I said, it's about how you judge someone (such as a proper trial vs flippant execution) and on what criteria.
The main thrust of my point is: Policing language while there are people out there gleefully murdering children and rigging the economy so that more suffer for their gains is pathetic pedantry and only a practice of self-fellatio at best, and running interference for these despicable monsters at worst.
Some people do, in fact, deserve to be called absolute trash monsters for betraying humanity, and do, in fact, deserve to be treated differently. Permanent incarceration (if they are the irredeemable type) after due process is still treating someone differently.
Also: "sociopath/psychopath/narcissist" etc. is not just another name for a horrible person.
Dehumanizing AI is a good thing.
You can't dehumanize what was never human to begin with.
Which, kind of drags the entire thing from the meta level down to the object level. There were cases of dehumanization in not-that-ancient history where the dehumanizers explicitly claimed the victims are not humans. American slavery is one example. The Holocaust is another. MAGAs (still) won't claim explicitly that the minorities they dehumanize are not human. If we stay at the meta level, wouldn't that make them worse that than slavers and actual Nazis who can say they are not dehumanizing because their victims were never human to being with?
It shouldn't.
We humanize lots of non-human things all the time. Pets, animals used as meat, 1 month old fetuses, fictional characters, religious figures, etc.
It is as human to humanize as it is to dehumanize because it's in our nature to attempt to define what is and isn't us.
When you attribute value to a being because you see humanity in it, you are making a value statement that a being has worth because it has humanity, not because it has life which is precious.
Ultimately, dehumanizing ourselves is how we can extend our compassion to other beings. When we accept that we are no more alive than pigs are, we accept that pigs, too, are living being with their own thoughts, subjective experience, and suffering.
You can absolutely dehumanize things that were never human, because what it means to be human is neither universal nor static. AI is human to people who don't understand how LLMs work. There's a thought experiment called Roco's basilisk (trigger warning as it can induce anxiety) that entirely banks on people's tendency to humanize AI. You can argue that people are dumb and just don't understand that that's not how AI works, but how something works often has no bearing on how it is perceived by people.
More people than ever are asking what it means to be human in the face of something that almost communicates like one. We are not dehumanizing AI because of it's race, gender, or color, because that is not clearly defined in AI. We're dehumanizing AI because we are asking what it means to be human outside of superficial context.
I hate AI especially how they try to make it "humanlike" but how did this topic even come up?
Dehumanization, tribalism, racism, religious intolerance.
Name a more iconic, perfidious quartet.
I agree! I've been trying to brainstorm how one can sort of effectively do the opposite of those dehumanizing incel memes.
We really need some viral empathy.
Take the pope's words to JD Vance, "love doesn't have a budget, you try to love everyone as hard as you can" (paraphrasing)
What about dehumanizing billionaires and cops?
Humanity is inalienable. The most wretched, hateful human you can imagine cannot become un-human.
Think of it like calling a turd on a pedestal art. It doesn't mean it's good art, or even that you shouldn't bag it up and throw it out.
Same thing.
Still human. Being human has nothing to do with being a good human.
Dehumanization of groups from a position of power is bad.
Dehumanization of bad powerful individuals to make it emotionally easier to take them down may be necessary.
I don't believe in evil, but I do believe in consequences.
Yeah but here's the thing:
A good amount of people use the race of a wrongdoer to justify the dehumination and collective guilt of everyone said group. Look at how people justify the murder of Jews by pointing to Netanyahu. Look at how Islamic Terrorists justified the murder of Westerners by pointing to the crimes of America. Look at how many people justify the murder of Muslims by pointing to 9/11 or Rotherham. Look at how Terfs justify the dehumanization and extermination of transgender people, or even gender variants in general, by pointing to cases involving transgender people.
It does not prevent the collectivisation of crimes to justify the dehumanization of groups and people. It is still a slippery slope that leads to fascism.
A good amount of people use the race of a wrongdoer to justify the dehumination and collective guilt of everyone said group.
Its a good thing I'm not advocating for that.
Look at how people justify the murder of Jews by pointing to Netanyahu. Look at how Islamic Terrorists justified the murder of Westerners by pointing to the crimes of America. Look at how many people justify the murder of Muslims by pointing to 9/11 or Rotherham. Look at how Terfs justify the dehumanization and extermination of transgender people, or even gender variants in general, by pointing to cases involving transgender people.
These are all in-group out-group dynamics. They have nothing to do with the fact that people point at specific bad powerful individuals. In fact its often the other way around, people will often hate/love a leader more depending on whether they're perceived to be in any specific group.
It does not prevent the collectivisation of crimes to justify the dehumanization of groups and people. It is still a slippery slope that leads to fascism.
I am specifically advocating only to make it easier to pull the trigger on powerful people doing massive harm. More harm comes from letting a powerful person live if they're active in doing harm. Anything that makes it easier to take down harmful powerful people in aggregate results in a net good.
Luigi Mangione is innocent of murder. The dead CEO is guilty of mass murder and intended to continue. The new CEO taking his place is also likely someone that should be luigi'd, as are the current stockholders.
human monsters are still human. if you want to defeat human evil you need to acknowledge and address it for what it is, not disavow it. you won't "no true scotsman" your way to defeating fascism.
So many times I have said this to be met with "hurr durr but you can't empathize or let fascists off easy" by people just repeatedly missing the point
Billionaires are subhuman and don't deserve to exist.
Fascists might be human people, but I've lost faith in human people. I kinda don't even want to keep being one myself.
Notable exception: "Not men. Fascists."
Personally I think more murder would solve a lot of our problems but you do you.
Just saying imagine how much better the world would be if the guy who shot Trump didnt miss
As much as I would like to believe that, I doubt it though. Trump isn't the mastermind behind these plans, he is merely a puppet. Puppets are easily replaceable.