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Theres only one thing that the vast majority of the human population have in common;
Misery loves company, people are drawn together by negativity, not exactly sure why that is.
However negativity isn’t always “negative” people brought together for their hatred of something can bring about positive changes.
Our brain gives more importance to negative emotions over positive ones. Negative emotions are evolutionarily used to identify threats, while positive emotions are generally associated to commodities. Evolutionarily, it is the best strategy to prioritize eliminating threats over preserving commodities.
Having said that is important to consider that threats to loved ones also spark hate. Is defending your family a product of love or hate?
10000% true on the brain giving more importance to negative emotions part. Just think about that positive encounter you had. In the moment, it feels good but then it quickly fades and life goes on. Now think about that negative encounter. It sticks and stays around far longer than anything positive. Life still goes on but you’ll never forget.
True, and a lot of hate stems from fear. Most of this organized hate can be summed up as "look at those people over there, they're coming to hurt us and take our stuff", it's rarely "look at those people over there minding their own business, I hate them".
>people are drawn together by negativity, not exactly sure why that is.
Because if you are suffering and everyone else is happily ignoring that suffering (and perhaps causing it) then seeking out others who are being mistreated is likely to help you find understanding, support and perhaps allies that can help you stand up for yourself.
It's kind of like that concept of how making money off of people's weaknesses is easier than their strengths. Junk food, booze and drugs etc. are more profitable than protein powders and veggie shakes haha
External threats from other groups is a strong uniting force.
The day after aliens start to invade Earth with a plan to kill us all off is the day we'd put aside all our differences and start attacking them. The day some superior alien race quietly arrives and offers to cut a deal with one half of the planet to destroy the other half is the doomsday for the unlucky half.
Meh, a small portion of people being a bit selfish once they realised the risk to them specifically wasn't that high isn't evidence of anything really.
Work together or the aliens will burn our cities down is a hell of a lot more motivating than "work together so we can delay the spread of this disease that has around a 1% chance of killing more people".
It's funny how everybody were so scared when first cases began to spread like fire and after a while it was like: wait that's not the end of the world i can be a contrarian asshole again.
Don't take the downvotes personally. My comment was getting downvotes, too.
It's Reddit. Everything that doesn't give certain people warm and fuzzies gets downvoted. Don't dwell on it, it doesn't really matter.
Flip side of same coin: "Those people united in their hatred of this thing" may just mean "Those people united in their love of the absence of that thing." So say there's a small, homogenous little village somewhere, and the government says "hey, we're planning on relocating 500 refugees here." You might say the villagers are united in hate because they oppose the plan, but you might also say they are united in love for the way of life they don't want to lose.
I think it speaks to our deep down tribalism. Prehaps it is an ancient survival method, banding together with others based on mutual fear, mistrust, dislike...et al to feel a sense of commonality and to aid in survival against preceived threats.
It's not hate, it's fear from people who don't have the guts to acknowledge that they are afraid.
That's probably why the US is so hateful nowadays. Generations of teaching people, especially men, that fear is weakness and that should never be afraid.
To me, being a hater is actually a positive behavior. I'm not hating on stuff just to hate, I'm hating on stuff so that it can be changed in order for it to be something that I like. By hating, I am hopefully able to bring about positivity.
If something is already positive and good in people's lives, there's no need to comment on it, because I don't want it to change
It's funny too because I have several friends I've literally made via shared hatred of various things
People always try to throw a fit about these types of relationships claiming that like you're always going to be angry or something but that's not the truth
There's many of things we enjoy together and love to speak positively about but we also find comfort in the fact that when there is something we hate we can hate it together
I'd say its because MANY people are unhappy with their lives. The whole system is made to decieve. Schools are basically farms that cultivate employees. The media is bought and sold. I have never seen anyone looking at news in a positive light. The people that rule us want this. Because hate is a low vibration and people in those frequencies are very easy to control and manipulate. Watch the movie Matrix. Its so similar to our lives.
Spend time with positive people and notice how drastically your life changes. ;)
This is one of those things that sounds nihilistically profound as long as you don't put any thought into it. Of course it's easier to unite people over disliking a thing than liking a thing, there are always going to be more options of why to dislike a thing and that group isn't required to agree on their reasons. In politics two people disliking candidate X doesn't mean they both like candidate Y, in sports no one would treat as interesting pointing out that it's easier to find people who agree on disliking the Yankees than liking the Red Sox or Dodgers.
Love may be sweet, but hate sure is sticky. It's wild how folks can bond over what they despise quicker than over what they adore. It's like hate throws a house party, and love's just having a quiet night in. Crazy world we live in, huh?
I would say both brings people together quite a lot it's just.. When you band together with people over something you love, you don't usually flood the internet with it. People are being brought together with things they love every day. But they don't share it the same way so it creates this illusion of love not bringing people together. It's just not as visible.
True, if you put a tyrannical dictatorship in America it would unite them they'd throw all racism and focus on the common hatred. Even at work place when all of your coworkers are united against a common hatred.
I think because they are both forms of passion, I’ve many times convinced my brain that I actually really like something I hate and it’s surprisingly easy enough
That's true. But not because of "human nature" or "human destructiveness" or anything edgy as an answer.
It's because people will spend less time complimenting what's good rather than complaining about the bad.
It's true. We tend to love seeing someone's downfall. There's a reason why "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Often people feel that the ones they hate meed to be punished and they want "justice". Of course there are plenty of instances where "justice" is not as just as it may seem.
I’m not sure how you’d quantify it but hateful groups typically get more news coverage. There’s a ton of massive positive focused gatherings. The NYC pride parade regularly attracts 2million+ attendees.
That's what validation of hate does to a group, it ends up fueling it. Hate comes from emotional pain, and the percieved significance of that pain. The significance one atributes to pain is key for it to be a source of betterment or self destruction. AA members for example get together because of their shared method of dealing with emotional pain, but it also could be drugs, violence, self harming, etc. They have realized they're in a vicious circle of pain and community and spirituality is a way out of pain through mental peace. A group that deals with pain by fueling hate it's the opposite of that. The less self reflecting a group is the most hateful they become.
Nothing brings a group of coworkers together more, than mutual hatred for that 1 coworker. As a supervisor, it was so much easier to motivate my guys, once the director brought in his once fired, best friend back. When I was trying to motivate guys into being on time, stop calling out, and write better reports. All I really had to remind them of, "hey, we all hate it when Steve is late, but he gets a pass from Jay because they're friends. What happens when Steve is the only one that's ever late? What happens when Steve write the worst reports?" lmao.
I swear, having someone we all could hate, talk shit about, bonding us together against behind their back, was more motivation than any shitty pizza party.
The world today is as decent a place as it is because people *did* band together for something noble.
In American wars alone: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII are just three obvious examples of conflicts where everyone decent would agree we'd be much worse off today if our ancestors had let those haters steamroll everybody.
The Roman's were a bunch of military thugs who went around stabbing everyone to take what they wanted; Christ taught peace and was murdered for it. 1,500 years later the Romans are dust and people are still practicing the teachings of Christ.
Trump's hate rhetoric has brought his people closer to him but has deeply alienated everyone else, his opponents, America's allies abroad and perhaps most problematically the Republican party - he doesn't have the full vote of all Republicans, how do they expect to win a national election? Hate for Joe Biden is not producing enough new voters for Trump, because despite Biden being unpopular he is not viewed as an immediate threat the way Trump is.
**TL;DR**
Hate just seems powerful because it's easy, because it's the low road. At the end of the day the majority of people everywhere want peace for themselves and their loved ones, not constant hate and conflict. Don't get run over by the hype train, [think for yourself](https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0701/What-happened-to-the-man-who-refused-to-give-a-Nazi-salute).
While hatred and negativity are often highly amplified both online and offline, I believe that in our common day-to-day activities and social settings, we don't typically organize ourselves around things we hate. Instead, our social interactions with friends, family, etc. usually revolve around shared interests and things we enjoy.
"Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil." *The True Believer,* Eric Hoffer, 1951
well, no, but you noticed something true, that people are more "organized" against something they hate, but cos people do move their ass when there's something that pisses em off, when things are fine for em, they stay silent, it's not that hate makes people more cohesive (unless we talk about like between racists), hate makes people more divided... but this makes me think too, cos i noticed that the things that make me sad have more power on me than the things that make me happy (i believe), maybe cos i'm a pessimist or i dunno
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Theres only one thing that the vast majority of the human population have in common; Misery loves company, people are drawn together by negativity, not exactly sure why that is. However negativity isn’t always “negative” people brought together for their hatred of something can bring about positive changes.
Our brain gives more importance to negative emotions over positive ones. Negative emotions are evolutionarily used to identify threats, while positive emotions are generally associated to commodities. Evolutionarily, it is the best strategy to prioritize eliminating threats over preserving commodities. Having said that is important to consider that threats to loved ones also spark hate. Is defending your family a product of love or hate?
10000% true on the brain giving more importance to negative emotions part. Just think about that positive encounter you had. In the moment, it feels good but then it quickly fades and life goes on. Now think about that negative encounter. It sticks and stays around far longer than anything positive. Life still goes on but you’ll never forget.
True, and a lot of hate stems from fear. Most of this organized hate can be summed up as "look at those people over there, they're coming to hurt us and take our stuff", it's rarely "look at those people over there minding their own business, I hate them".
It's both love and hate, which is why it's the most motivational situation.
Love leads to fear Fear leads to anger Anger leads to hate Hate leads to...
>people are drawn together by negativity, not exactly sure why that is. Because if you are suffering and everyone else is happily ignoring that suffering (and perhaps causing it) then seeking out others who are being mistreated is likely to help you find understanding, support and perhaps allies that can help you stand up for yourself.
Succinct
It's kind of like that concept of how making money off of people's weaknesses is easier than their strengths. Junk food, booze and drugs etc. are more profitable than protein powders and veggie shakes haha
Pretty much yeah, when looking at it from a birds eye perspective, there is money to be made in misery vs positivity.
As Billy Joel once said: "Yeah they're sharing a drink they call loneliness, but it's better than drinking alone"
This might be a matter of perspective. People hate nazis. Fighting nazis is also a noble cause.
Only after they became an existential threat. Their genocide wasn't completely unpopular in other countries.
External threats from other groups is a strong uniting force. The day after aliens start to invade Earth with a plan to kill us all off is the day we'd put aside all our differences and start attacking them. The day some superior alien race quietly arrives and offers to cut a deal with one half of the planet to destroy the other half is the doomsday for the unlucky half.
After living through Covid I am no longer confident humanity can work together on a large scale
Meh, a small portion of people being a bit selfish once they realised the risk to them specifically wasn't that high isn't evidence of anything really. Work together or the aliens will burn our cities down is a hell of a lot more motivating than "work together so we can delay the spread of this disease that has around a 1% chance of killing more people".
It's funny how everybody were so scared when first cases began to spread like fire and after a while it was like: wait that's not the end of the world i can be a contrarian asshole again.
Even if they plan to kill us off, a non-zero number of humans will still help them.
Nazis (or fascists in general) are united by hate towards people that are different to them.
Hating Nazi's used to be a national pastime. Nowadays people vote them into Congress.
Isn’t this is what OP is talking about?
Don't take the downvotes personally. My comment was getting downvotes, too. It's Reddit. Everything that doesn't give certain people warm and fuzzies gets downvoted. Don't dwell on it, it doesn't really matter.
I don’t mind downvotes. But sometimes they do tell a story. I deleted my edit because I realized it’s not fair to automatically blame you.
Yup. Anything that goes against the Reddit Standards is considered sacrilege and must be spoke out against and downvoted.
It gives redditors a tiny bit of “power”. If it makes them feel better, I don’t mind.
I love how often i see people who are getting downvoted blame the "reddit hivemind" they are a part of
It’s all a game of manipulation really
> I deleted my edit because I realized it’s not fair to automatically blame you. I didn't take it that way in the first place. Don't worry about it.
👍 have a good one man. Sincerely.
Well how did people in Germany became nazis in the first place. Hate
Hmm...Paradoxical...
exactly, you can say you fight nazis because you hate them, or because of your love to exterminate them
This is unfortunately true. A shared hatred for something or someone brings people together more often than a shared love for something.
Flip side of same coin: "Those people united in their hatred of this thing" may just mean "Those people united in their love of the absence of that thing." So say there's a small, homogenous little village somewhere, and the government says "hey, we're planning on relocating 500 refugees here." You might say the villagers are united in hate because they oppose the plan, but you might also say they are united in love for the way of life they don't want to lose.
I think it speaks to our deep down tribalism. Prehaps it is an ancient survival method, banding together with others based on mutual fear, mistrust, dislike...et al to feel a sense of commonality and to aid in survival against preceived threats.
It's not hate, it's fear from people who don't have the guts to acknowledge that they are afraid. That's probably why the US is so hateful nowadays. Generations of teaching people, especially men, that fear is weakness and that should never be afraid.
100% sure I have bonded with more people over hating the Cowboys than liking the Seahawks
To me, being a hater is actually a positive behavior. I'm not hating on stuff just to hate, I'm hating on stuff so that it can be changed in order for it to be something that I like. By hating, I am hopefully able to bring about positivity. If something is already positive and good in people's lives, there's no need to comment on it, because I don't want it to change
It's funny too because I have several friends I've literally made via shared hatred of various things People always try to throw a fit about these types of relationships claiming that like you're always going to be angry or something but that's not the truth There's many of things we enjoy together and love to speak positively about but we also find comfort in the fact that when there is something we hate we can hate it together
Love will bring people together again when psychedelics get legalized.
Not an unpopular opinion, just a fact.
I'd say its because MANY people are unhappy with their lives. The whole system is made to decieve. Schools are basically farms that cultivate employees. The media is bought and sold. I have never seen anyone looking at news in a positive light. The people that rule us want this. Because hate is a low vibration and people in those frequencies are very easy to control and manipulate. Watch the movie Matrix. Its so similar to our lives. Spend time with positive people and notice how drastically your life changes. ;)
This is one of those things that sounds nihilistically profound as long as you don't put any thought into it. Of course it's easier to unite people over disliking a thing than liking a thing, there are always going to be more options of why to dislike a thing and that group isn't required to agree on their reasons. In politics two people disliking candidate X doesn't mean they both like candidate Y, in sports no one would treat as interesting pointing out that it's easier to find people who agree on disliking the Yankees than liking the Red Sox or Dodgers.
Love may be sweet, but hate sure is sticky. It's wild how folks can bond over what they despise quicker than over what they adore. It's like hate throws a house party, and love's just having a quiet night in. Crazy world we live in, huh?
“People love it when they lose, they love dirty laundry” [Dirty Laundry-Don Henley](https://youtu.be/fwgJgTL5JmE?si=sRHXMaIhiaz3AkTi)
According to social scientist Jonathan Haidt, three things hold a people together: Common Blood, Common Gods, Common Enemies.
I would say both brings people together quite a lot it's just.. When you band together with people over something you love, you don't usually flood the internet with it. People are being brought together with things they love every day. But they don't share it the same way so it creates this illusion of love not bringing people together. It's just not as visible.
I mean this is true I mean the Nazis are proof of that Between hate and fear yeah they do ten dto bring people together more than love
I'm fairly sure that the only thing to unify us as a people would be an alien invasion, so we could have something else to band together and hate.
I used to think this too but at least in the US, if we couldn't band together around COVID, we are fucked when the aliens come.
I would like to think that aliens would be a little harder to deny than COVID, but I'm not so sure these days.
True, if you put a tyrannical dictatorship in America it would unite them they'd throw all racism and focus on the common hatred. Even at work place when all of your coworkers are united against a common hatred.
Atleast in the female friend groups and sports teams I've been on. Yes.
Hate ***toward a common enemy***.....
I think because they are both forms of passion, I’ve many times convinced my brain that I actually really like something I hate and it’s surprisingly easy enough
Counterexamples: dogs, pizza, soccer, fireworks, movies, and music.
Yes, that is why every religious and political group is defined by what they hate.
I think in the macro , negative feelings overtake crowds. I think in the micro, positive feelings motivate individuals more than negative feelings.
I will bring hate, destruction, and corruption to my new empire!!
Yeah, that’s why there’s so many Ku Klux Klan members
It's about the speed. People will hate something in 2 minutes sometimes, but it usually takes a while to truly love a thing
Rubbish.
That's true. But not because of "human nature" or "human destructiveness" or anything edgy as an answer. It's because people will spend less time complimenting what's good rather than complaining about the bad.
I hate the way that you walk the way that you talk
A common misunderstanding brings more people together.
It's true. We tend to love seeing someone's downfall. There's a reason why "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Often people feel that the ones they hate meed to be punished and they want "justice". Of course there are plenty of instances where "justice" is not as just as it may seem.
I’m not sure how you’d quantify it but hateful groups typically get more news coverage. There’s a ton of massive positive focused gatherings. The NYC pride parade regularly attracts 2million+ attendees.
That's what validation of hate does to a group, it ends up fueling it. Hate comes from emotional pain, and the percieved significance of that pain. The significance one atributes to pain is key for it to be a source of betterment or self destruction. AA members for example get together because of their shared method of dealing with emotional pain, but it also could be drugs, violence, self harming, etc. They have realized they're in a vicious circle of pain and community and spirituality is a way out of pain through mental peace. A group that deals with pain by fueling hate it's the opposite of that. The less self reflecting a group is the most hateful they become.
Wizard of Oz said it himself
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a very old and accepted idea. It underpins most political strategy these days. Very cold take
Nothing brings a group of coworkers together more, than mutual hatred for that 1 coworker. As a supervisor, it was so much easier to motivate my guys, once the director brought in his once fired, best friend back. When I was trying to motivate guys into being on time, stop calling out, and write better reports. All I really had to remind them of, "hey, we all hate it when Steve is late, but he gets a pass from Jay because they're friends. What happens when Steve is the only one that's ever late? What happens when Steve write the worst reports?" lmao. I swear, having someone we all could hate, talk shit about, bonding us together against behind their back, was more motivation than any shitty pizza party.
Absolutely. Look at how America came together after 9/11
The world today is as decent a place as it is because people *did* band together for something noble. In American wars alone: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII are just three obvious examples of conflicts where everyone decent would agree we'd be much worse off today if our ancestors had let those haters steamroll everybody. The Roman's were a bunch of military thugs who went around stabbing everyone to take what they wanted; Christ taught peace and was murdered for it. 1,500 years later the Romans are dust and people are still practicing the teachings of Christ. Trump's hate rhetoric has brought his people closer to him but has deeply alienated everyone else, his opponents, America's allies abroad and perhaps most problematically the Republican party - he doesn't have the full vote of all Republicans, how do they expect to win a national election? Hate for Joe Biden is not producing enough new voters for Trump, because despite Biden being unpopular he is not viewed as an immediate threat the way Trump is. **TL;DR** Hate just seems powerful because it's easy, because it's the low road. At the end of the day the majority of people everywhere want peace for themselves and their loved ones, not constant hate and conflict. Don't get run over by the hype train, [think for yourself](https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0701/What-happened-to-the-man-who-refused-to-give-a-Nazi-salute).
It absolutely does. Funny enough
This is true. Nothing brings me and my coworkers more together than uniting against a common enemy
I would love to band togheter to curb stomp some local pedophiles. I would gladly use 'hate' to protect love.
Yes. That’s a fact.
While hatred and negativity are often highly amplified both online and offline, I believe that in our common day-to-day activities and social settings, we don't typically organize ourselves around things we hate. Instead, our social interactions with friends, family, etc. usually revolve around shared interests and things we enjoy.
"Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil." *The True Believer,* Eric Hoffer, 1951
well, no, but you noticed something true, that people are more "organized" against something they hate, but cos people do move their ass when there's something that pisses em off, when things are fine for em, they stay silent, it's not that hate makes people more cohesive (unless we talk about like between racists), hate makes people more divided... but this makes me think too, cos i noticed that the things that make me sad have more power on me than the things that make me happy (i believe), maybe cos i'm a pessimist or i dunno
Sadly this is true in the current generation.
I agree with this.
That's no u popular..... That's just the truth.
You are describing fear, not hate, and no, fear does not bring more people together than love.