Why are people on the internet (and Lemmy) so quick to say someone "deserves to die"
On so many different news items, threads, etc. People are the first to claim pretty much anyone who has made a mistake, or does something they disagree with deserves to die.
Like, do some people not have the capability to empathise and realise they might have been in a similar place if they were born in a different environment…
I genuinely understand, you think a politician who has lead to countless deaths, a war criminal, or a mass rapists deserves to die.
But here people say it for stuff that falls way below the bar.
A contracted logger of a rainforest (who knows if they have the money / opportunity to support their family another way). Deserves to die.
A civilian of Nazi germany of whom we know nothing about their collaboration/agreement with the regime. Deserves to die.
Some person who was a drug dealer and then served their time. Deserves to die.
Like I don’t get it? Are people not able to imagine the kind of situations that create these people, and that it’s not impossible to imagine the large majority of people in these positions if born in a different environment?
Most people are led by emotions rather than cold and analytical reasoning. I believe everyone has the capability to think objectively but that capability gets clouded when ever they're taken capture by strong emotions. That's why they can reasonably consider an abstract but difficult trolley problem but then lose their minds when Elon says something stupid on Twitter.
I want to believe that the majority of people around me would infact not want to cast death sentences haphazardly like that but rather they're just expressing how they feel. It's a way to signal to the group. "Elon is a nazi and deserves to die" roughly tanslates to "boo Elon"
I think you are right. I wanted to add that often times people will have a strong sense of justice or revenge and want to see something bad happen to a person who did bad things.
Other times when people call for someone's death, it's because they don't believe that there is any other way to stop the harm that person is causing. This tends to be the case when political figures start violating the civil and human rights of their constituents.