Ancestors

Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 11:53

"Just don't be a bigot! It's not that hard!"

Except that it is. Human brains evolved to categorize dangers with maximum energy efficiency for a certain level of just-not-getting-killed. This is not the same as accuracy.

One consistent, potent danger for the last 100,000 years or more has been other humans.

1/7

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

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Toot

Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 11:59

Consider a person who has been treated badly by a few people of Type X. Maybe those people are in a strong situation leading them to treat our subject badly. maybe they're just shitty people. They are only a small proportion of Type X people.

Our subject's experience is "Most of my worst experiences were because of Type X people" and "All Type X people I've ever known have treated me badly."

Making rational judgments about Type X people would be quite hard. Prejudice seems almost inevitable. How do you deprogram this person from their own experience?

2/7

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

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Descendants

Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 12:02

Consider a European village in, IDK, Olden Pre-Medieval Times. They're almost all Type X people. A few Type Y people live in town and they are subject to lots of discrimination. The village has a fundamental value: Type Y people are bad and will turn on you at a moment's notice; be ready to harm them or kick them out of the village.

3/7

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

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Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 12:04

Sometimes Type Y people show up from outside, and sometimes they cause trouble. Sometimes the native Type Y people cause problems--maybe even less frequently than the majority Type X people, but it happens.

The Type X villagers ruthlessly enact their value: on a hair trigger they punish the local Type Y people, hurting or exiling them. They are very unlikely to allow foreign Type Y people to remain in town for more than a day or two; those folks get railroaded out pretty quickly.

So...

4/7

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

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Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 12:06

When would the stereotypes about Type Y ever disappear? The majority group will have these experiences:

1. A Type Y did something bad, we punished or exiled them, and we didn't have any more problems from Type Y people.

2. We kick the new Type Y people right out of town or never let them in at all. And we have never had any problem with Type Y invaders messing things up.

How do you convince those people Type Y are humans just like them and no more likely to be dicks than they are? From their point of view, their prejudice has kept them safe.

5/7

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

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Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 12:12

There are other mechanisms besides these driving stereotypes and prejudice, too. Our brains are almost programmed for it. We've got the raw materials for bigotry in our OS, easily catalyzed by our social experiences.

Populist and fascist scapegoating are easy to inflame: you just feed those tendencies.

6/7

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

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Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 12:13

Antiracism, gender equality, SGM equality, etc. are not the default. Every major ethical system seems to have lots of words dedicated to reducing prejudice; I think that's because we fall into it so easily, and compassionate, rational thinkers have understood this since long before writing existed.

Vote for the hard thing. Vote for equality. Vote for systems that help us be good humans despite being humans. Feed the cultural thread toward ethical behavior that we've been nurturing for many thousands of years. It needs the help.

7/7 (fin)

[#]stereotypes #prejudice #discrimination #racism #sexism #misogyny #homophobia #psychology

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Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 12:53

Last note: "Why can't we be like little chidren? They're not racist! They're not sexist!"

Have you ever met any little children? They're super bigoted. Prejudice is so easy to trigger (or just observe) that many studies of prejudice and discrimination use toddlers or kindergarteners as subjects because it's just so damn easy.

Prejudice is easy. Anti-prejudice is hard.

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Written by guyjantic has moved! on 2024-11-03 at 13:00

No, really, the seriously last note:

Fascist (or "merely" bigoted) pundits, politicians, and leaders of organizations weaponize all of the above, I think: I see these people urging their followers to avoid outgroup members or only interact with outgroup members in ways guaranteed to confirm stereotypes. I see the stereotypes repeated and reinforced, further guaranteeing that intergroup contact has no real danger of making anything better.

[#]maga

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