Sunday, February 9, 2025

Words that Damage (Philosophical Thought Experiment)

People have discussed words such as hate speech for a long time and often wonder what impact it has on environments. In my hypothetical thought experiment, we find that in certain circles where hate speech is high there is belittling of others in general and more pointedly against certain races, religions, politics, etc... That leads to a desensitization of such hate and in turn likely increased aggressiveness toward those others. That will have an impact on total group performance.

According to the study below hate speech increases prejudice, dehumanization, and lack of empathy toward out-group members. I'm just working on a thought experiment where a member of society is hated so radically there are no backstops to poor behaviors. Its meant to be hypothetical but still very interesting in the many ways we can sort of think about hate.

Don't think in terms of specific anything as it applies not necessarily to any individual race or religion or politics but to the general concept of hate and its influence. There may be potentially untapped sources of human capital and trying to understand how speech improves or deteriorates group performance is helpful

I know there are lots of opinions on this topic. My focus is on moral conscious and human performance because they are tied deeply into the human psyche.  When do you think people perform the best or the worst? Notice that the research says either or making it more of concept that is subjectively dependent on who is and who isn't in the outgroup. It is a human issue designed to create social boundaries.

Exposure to hate speech deteriorates neurocognitive mechanisms of the ability to understand others’ pain

Pluta, A., Mazurek, J., Wojciechowski, J. et al. Exposure to hate speech deteriorates neurocognitive mechanisms of the ability to understand others’ pain. Sci Rep 13, 4127 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31146-1


No comments:

Post a Comment