How we are moved to hate

I’m still working on figuring this out, but I want to share what I have learned so far.

My underlying question is not new, it is in fact ageless.

How are we influenced to hate? 

And secondarily, what can we do about it?

How do normal, intelligent, socially integrated people, teachers, firemen, small business owners, leaders of families…how are they moved from normalcy to hate?  And not just anger, hate.  Hate so pure and vicious that they take action on that hate?

They turn on their neighbors and family and friends.

They become hateful mobs that riot, destroy and murder?

And they do these things with confidence and self-satisfaction, knowing that they are right, and righteous?

My theory is that this is the product of influence.

Influence is the science of getting people to do what you want.  Humans come out of the box wired a certain way.  And if you understand this wiring you can push the right buttons and get the behavior you want.

For this I will point you to a small, hard to read textbook “Influence”, by Robert Cialdini.  This is a book written by and for salespeople and marketers by a psychology professor.  As you read it you will see how your buttons have been pushed throughout your life to get you to buy something.

Why does the salesperson offer you the most expensive item first?  Because they know that even though you reject that item you are now conditioned to buy more.

Why do you give money to certain charities when they say the right thing?  Because you see it as part of your group and personal identity and to not do so would violate that belief.

Why are you far more likely to follow a stranger’s recommendation for a restaurant or product?  Because of the power of social proof.

Why do they offer something free or cheap?  To get you through the door, to break the ice because once you have bought something you are much more likely to buy something else.  It is the first step.

With this science you can be influenced to do something you would not, normally do.  You may wake up with an expensive car you never wanted and can’t afford, but you will rationalize that decision to convince yourself that it was your decision, not the chicanery of influence.

But these techniques were designed for the age of physical stores, door-to-door salesmen, billboards and ads in newspapers or on television.  The golden age of mass marketing.

And in such mediums the influence is significantly watered down.  No one is going to run out and buy a Buick based on a TV commercial.

But the methods are still valid.  The tools are still great at manipulating people.

And this is how you get from loyal prisoner of war to speaking out against your country on the T.V.  Similar methodology.

This is how you get from local, loyal husband, father and churchgoer to rioter assaulting someone.  Similar methodology.

One key difference is that we have moved beyond billboards and print advertising.  The challenge has always been how to get your attention, how to get you to slow down and look, how to get you into the store.

Now we voluntarily scroll through the billboards and print ad and sales pitch equivalents every day.

They don’t need to get our attention.  We are giving it away for free in large chunks.

The algorithm can hit you with 1,000 triggers a day.  The algorithm knows who you are, where you live, whether you have a spouse or children and what your interests are.

And the feedback mechanism is immediate.

Even if you looked at my billboard by the side of the road, I would never know how you were effected, if you were interested, or how long your eyes lingered.

Not so anymore.

You are A-B tested a thousand times a day.  Each thing that is put in front of you is a test.  How long do you read it?  How long do your eyes dwell.  Do you expand the article?  Click on the picture?

The feedback is contextual and instantaneous and at a volume of hundreds of millions of billboards a day.

The algorithm then rates and weighs each piece of content to see which ones caused you to react and how you reacted.  God help you if you ‘like’ or ‘follow’ or ‘share’.  Now you’re hooked.

The problem is that it isn’t just unnecessary junk we are being sold.  Sure they still try to sell us stuff, but modern influence is targeted at how you think and what you believe and how to make you take action on those beliefs.

Now, it’s not just an expensive car that you need to justify.  It’s a set of beliefs and actions that you are convinced you came to of your own volition.

You did not.

You were influenced.

What starts as a mild, funny joke about how a certain candidate looks a bit like an elephant escalates.

Because the software knows something now.  It knows that outrage causes you to act.  It knows that outrage sells.

Outrage sells better than humor.  Outrage sells better than respect and love.

So this is the escalation.  From humor or mild interest to hate and action through a stimulus feedback loop that you are not even aware of.

And they layer on the power of social proof.

Using the power of social proof, you are combined with all the other people who reacted in a similar way.  And the echo chamber begins.  You only see outrages that reinforce the path you are being  walked down and you are surrounded by voices (real and imagined) that are reacting the same way and shouting the same slogans.

You are being tested.  You are being poked.  Your are being probed.  And once you are in motion the feedback loop amplifies and accelerates.

You are continuously probed with interest and outrages until in a moment of weakness you let them sneak a nose under the tent flap.

Now you’re in the store.

And you’ll probably buy something.

That’s how it works.  Test, test, test.  Poke, poke, poke.  Using all the demographic and behavioral information until you show interest.  Then from that interest you are walked down an escalating path of outrages until the loyal husband and father, paragon of virtue and community, shows up at his neighbor’s house with a sledgehammer or a gun.

By putting you in an echo chamber you are now subject to the evil side of social proof.  Sure, if everyone is buying those new shoes then you should too.  You do what the herd does.  It’s a safe decision.  It is a decision of belonging.

But social proof, when in the hands of an algorithm means not only are we isolated in our own group of like-minded people wallowing in shared outrage. The power of our group, our party, our ideology, our religious sect is shared community.  That is social proof.

Social proof creates and vilifies those not in our group.  The others, the outsiders.

But just like up needs down, and life needs death, social groups need ‘others’ to reinforce their own truth.  Again, we can be walked, step by step, down the path of respectful disagreement to the bowels of hate.  We are right.  The others are wrong.

With influence we are pushed far beyond mild disagreement to outright hate.  Not only are the others wrong, they are stupid and evil and hey, wouldn’t the world be better off without them?  Isn’t everything their fault?

Poke, poke, poke.  Test, test, test.

The tools of influence are easily used to make you hate the others.  You are led into the store, maybe by a valid civic concern and then poke, poke, poke, led down the path of outrage to the point of hate.  Now you’re onboard.  You hate those others so much that you have no problem causing them harm, or supporting the actuating of that harm, that pain, to the point of eliminating them.

Because they are others.  They deserve it.

We have been stripped of our self-awareness, our free will and our souls.

How did we get here?

Our meat-sack-brains are not designed to defend themselves against an automated assault.  It’s too easy.

First you give your attention.  Poke, poke, poke.

Next you give some interest.  Poke, poke, poke.

From there you are stimulated into fear.  Poke, poke, poke.

From fear it is an easy hop skip to outrage and hate.

How do we get out?

It won’t be easy.

I don’t have the answers.  But I do have thoughts.

Turn off the machine.  Stop listening, watching and consuming the hate.  Stop feeding the machine.  For one glorious moment take back your life.  Give your system a chance to reset to its normal baseline.

Disconnect yourself from the feed, from the matrix and from that echo-chamber community that you did not voluntarily join.  From the images, texts and voices that want to get you in the store and walk you down the aisles to hate.

Help others do the same.

This will take courage.  More courage than following the herd.

Find a way.  Break free.  Save your soul.

Go on a safari to find the true you.  The inner you.  The you that exists outside of all this madness.

Who are you without the hate?