Hate2.

Introduction.

We definitely weren't using deserve in the same way and I understood warrant differently the first time (I edited my reply like 1 hour after posting it though). However, if you mean justified morally, I could only agree with you if we were talking about some type of totally unavoidable reflex, which it isn't; and/or it was the most efficient response, where I have serious doubts.

I consider that we may have significantly different versions of the word hate too.

I am going to at least clarify that, if we make a rough dichotomy of hate as Feeling Only vs Feeling and Behavior related to it (like hating and not doing anything or just explaining your criticism/analysis of the game vs hating and insulting, for example), I consider the second one properly wrong. The first too, but in a less drastic way, and mainly as (probably) not the most useful feeling for oneself and society.

As important final note in this part I will also say that this is a bit pointless as discussion. Because it's very abstract once we know that the words were used differently and probably we would agree if we had in front of us some examples of actions (like people insulting and mocking the game under a high level video). Or maybe not, but in any case at this point I write more for the sake of conversing about hate than the real relevance of DmC or DMC5.

Threshold.

Using a term like threshold suggests that it's mainly quantitative, when it's achievable to have a drastically different mentality. Not only by concrete individuals, but bigger social groups and cultures. In some cases it would be about something much more severe than our situation with DmC.

Like this man, for example (and I don't even agree with him about everything he says):

I wouldn't consider representative to say that he has a higher or more lenient threshold, for example. He rather used a crucially different approach than hate regardless of the severity of the wrongdoing.

One can answer that this is anecdotal, but it's a rather hard topic to study in psychology compared to something like memory in basic psychology or even some behavioral pattern in studies of social psychology. You can't really manipulate too much variables in a study of hate, trying to upset people to such a point and observe their behavior (ethical issues), and with surveys/psychometric tools in general it's much harder to operationalize variables, let alone the possible lack of honesty (it's less acceptable to hate, so people could mitigate intentionally or less consciously that they hated someone/something).

What we can do, however, is observe tendencies and patterns, especially in history, and I wouldn't say that hate has been a productive feeling. Too many wars and massacres, discrimination, etc., were related to hate, to not be at least skeptical about its utility.

You may say that the French Revolution and others happened at least partially thanks to hate and anger, yet our situation is far from such levels of tension and transcendence.There are also counter examples like Gandhi's and MLK's strategies and their success. Which means that even if hate could have pragmatically some utility, there are alternatives with fewer (negative) side-effects.

What happened with DmC should be beyond most people's threshold to dislike and be upset and/or disappointed, even if you like the game, as the downgrades mean that one could have liked the game even more...; assuming a sample of knowledgeable individuals about mechanics. It's reasonable.

But hate? In this case I only can say understandable, as people have learned and developed emotionally different patterns, and as mentioned, it's possible but not easy to change such patterns (the most wouldn't even admit their own patterns could be wrong, to begin with).

If NT absolutely intentionally wanted to sabotage the series I would be more inclined to consider reasonable to hate them and DmC. But I consider raw mistakes (for them, they were improving the series, even if it's absurd for us) far below a reasonable threshold, in the sense of it would be almost impossible to not hate for most human beings from most cultures, thus it's pretty much unavoidable.

Something that suggests the hate towards DmC in general isn't really rational (unavoidable and related to the flaws) is observing how the majority was much more indulgent with a game from Itsuno (in proportion to the flaws, even if they are different). Many even reacted in a defensive way when we started using the inertia hashtag, trying to educate. At the very least a considerable portion of these people were however critical with DmC and hated it.

Same goes for veteran players and knowledgeable members of the community. Some are high level players in both games, DMC4 and DmC. They have definitely the knowledge, yet they don't necessarily hate.

Extrapolating this to the analogy with teenagers making too much noise this means that 2 people, who both agree that you should be thoughtful of this regardless of age can have different feelings towards the teens. One can be angry and the other calm (assuming their hearing is equally good too). The opposite is also true. 2 people who have a similar feeling towards the teens (maybe even hate) could have different interpretations: one may think that we all were teenagers and did crazy things, but still feel angry or hate, while the other may discard such explanation (thinking, for example, that they are already grown enough) and be angry or hate as well.

The cause of such differences can come from different automatized emotional tendencies, which depends on many factors. One is related to social norms/normality and how it's build by individuals while building individuals itself at the same time in different social groups (in most cases overlapped). Different types of pathologies, bad habits or circumstances like not sleeping well, let alone something like an anxiety disorder, can increase a lot the likelihood to hate or feel angry too. Factors that are independent from the wrong actions of another person and their interpretation as such.

As optional texts (because they are very long) in this regard:

- This article inspects and analyzes some studies about hate. Obviously I disagree with many things in it, like the definitions of anger compared to hate at some point, since I consider it less coherent than the one I explained in my previous reply (it's more consistent to consider anger as emotional reaction and hate as feeling, and the target of anger can be seen as flexible or rigid, unlike what's said in the text), several theories and models (at least partially), etc.

I do agree however with some of the negative aspects. Like the likelihood to leave a more stable and dogmatic bias, the tendency to spread or increase hostility in general intra und inter-group, which can damage a possible rational and calm communication to solve a conflict, etc.

- This text about social norms (and normality as a format), which I wrote long ago for another person. It hints how a social group or groups can perceive as reasonable (normal) to hate (or whatever) under X circumstances, while others not. And yet both social groups would perceive their respective reactions as natural. It's in Spanish though.

I share them because they are related to the complex causes of hate. But if you want to skip them it's fine, because in this case they aren't totally crucial for my point.

What's truly relevant for me is that in all these cases and examples we shared, there is an alternative to hate that achieves the same or better results without the negative effects. I don't think it was hate what motivated us to use the inertia hashtag and educate people in different ways, and I don't really think hate or anger would have somehow improved the results.

Negative emotions.

Since our design is mostly goal-oriented, some negative feelings are useful for a healthy relativization of situations and the psychological states themselves. For example, as I have said many times, to truly enjoy the company of others, sometimes one had to be alone and feel lonely.

Feeling certain levels of frustration is attached to the type and intensity of relief and satisfaction one feels when the objective is reached.

Unfocused activation like anxiety, or focused one, like stress, have useful adaptive functions. Another thing is how complex is to maintain a healthy balance.

Even sadness helps to identify and relativize our psychological reality. It helps to give structure to our emotional state between different situations.

Boredom can stimulate us to keep going, to find an alternative to what we are doing (or inactivity) and new challenges or objectives.

What I want to say with all this is that I wasn't really trying to insinuate all negative emotions and feelings should be avoided. It's more about rebalancing and in any case avoid specific ones. Rage or hate, for example, have hardly more useful functions than some alternatives in a modern context.

Punishment.

First point:

In a society where there aren't enough resources to re-educate every single person for every single mistake, a system of sanctions can be applied as quick measures to avoid the whole system crumbling without authorities and consequences to people's wrong actions. At least while a better system is developed and progressively implemented.

In this sense, yes. Of course it reduces the probability of people doing wrong things. However, it's not the best ultimate/long-term goal, as managing people's behavior through punishment implies that the good actions are just subordinate to the capacity to control/watch individuals' actions.

A potential robber who doesn't steal just because he is afraid of the punishment will do it if there is a chance to steal without being caught. If the impediment to do it is an alarm, for example, he will focus on trying to find a way to disable it or not activate it. But a re-educated robber wouldn't try anything even without the presence of an alarm. Same goes for any other crime and wrong actions overall.

Uneducated individuals who don't do wrong actions only because of punishment can potentially also get outraged by such system. Dumb revolutions or dumb protests exist as well, such as PEGIDA's demonstrations because of Germany's acceptance of Syrian refugees, or people who protest against COVID measures.

And this is just rough and pragmatic, without taking into account how interactions, improvements and efficiency would develop in such society with a system where people just don't do wrong things because they can get caught and punished.

I am not saying this is what you propose and I am conscious about that parenthesis clarifying that your criterion about punishment varies. I am just explaining that if it can't be extrapolated in general as the most efficient system, then it's probably flawed inherently and should be used only as very last option/temporarily until a better system is fully implemented. Something even more evident in education (punishment is generally counter productive or not nearly as efficient as the stimulation of positive intrinsic motivators in children and adults).

Second point:

As it was implicit in my previous reply, individuals should definitely be isolated to avoid further harm. If this is part of a punishment or not depends on the intention and perception of the prisoner, but I don't consider it part of a punishment per se.

In the same way, if two kids are kicking each other violently their father will stop them to avoid further harm before he even starts talking to them, which isn't a punishment but simply necessary.

Third point:

I am not sure if you refer to this as if most people would feel better or only you.

If you meant it in general, while there could be a psychobiological propensity to revenge, it's definitely not rigid and inevitable. Not only among different cultures, but individuals from relatively similar combinations of social groups. For instance, maybe for you and me it may be pleasant to a certain degree, but I am very certain for many friends in Spain or even Turtle it's not. It would be even the opposite.

In my case it's also more complex because I feel like shit many times after doing it, especially with my brother, but at the same time I have an anxiety disorder that multiplies my frustration and makes me want to direct it somewhere. The first target is obviously the person who has done something wrong or merely stupid, which is an immediate excuse to vent said frustration, especially from the impossibility to change someone as quickly as I want. In most cases I avoid it, but other times I will do it because the imbalance between the frustration and the harm I would do.

When I say that I feel bad I don't merely mean because of guilt, but empathy for the person who I have punished. Even the idiots who I expose on Twitter make me feel bad, and obviously it enters in conflict with my desire to care about everybody.

Despite all this, feeling better or worse isn't related to the causality I explained in the previous post. Revenge doesn't improve the system even feeling good about it.

I know most probably your reasoning is: assuming a very low probability for the author of the wrongdoing to change, at the very least we may let the victim feel better. Even assuming we could know somehow the probability was 0 (which is not realistic), rewarding victims making the authors suffer (for the sake of it; not related to the previous points) is educationally dangerous.

It precisely reinforces the tendency to prefer quick answers and rewards without bothering to understand the real causality of conflicts and thinking in the big picture. Including the this bad thing happened in the universe and I can compensate it with this action, as if they had the exact same value, but with different sign, and it would mathematically counter wrongdoings.

The tendency to believe in such a system of justice is mainly because it makes reality simpler and easier. Some even believe in something as as ridiculous as karma (beyond a comedic level). But you can't equate stealing a car with X amount of years in jail because causality isn't nearly as simple. The criminal still has to be in jail or isolated to avoid further wrongdoing and to apply the best possible re-educational/rehabilitation system (I don't know all the current ones but they are most probably still very poor and inefficient).

From this article:

From the linked report in the article:

I know these are old, but they are still a good reference. Basically, US has one of the harshest systems of punishment, yet it has one of the highest rates of recidivism. Also a very high rate of prisoners regarding the general population, but I consider this one a much more vague indicator to support or not the success of punishment.

Forcing a criminal to repair as much as possible the wrongdoing in a coherent way is different. Like damaging some property and having to fix it, or having to pay for the repair (in combination with other measures of re-education). But punishment understood as re-balance of good and evil is rudimentary and not productive. If it's intrinsically inefficient, using retribution only because of the internalized norms of the victim and how it feels is wrong as well.

A victim doesn't raise his or her emotional intelligence or turn utterly wise per se, simply for becoming a victim, to let him or her decide the faith of another person regardless of what evidence and arguments suggest that is the best for the whole community (I am not saying you said this; many things I say here aren't even counter arguments, but just an explanation of why I am against punishment).

Feeling good when punishing is probably not even consistent for the same people who enjoy it because, as I explain in the text about social norms, constructs integrate incongruous norms. For example, someone may feel good slapping back another man, but not if it's a woman. Let alone if it's a pregnant one (and just for slapping her she wouldn't lose the baby). Same for an old person (assuming there is no dementia and the old person consciously slapped first apparently out of nowhere).

Many would think it twice with a teenager too. But what's really the difference with the kid? It's much easier to admit that some sequence of events led to such behavior. In other words: bad education, experiences, circumstances, maybe mental health, blabla. And the predisposition to protect kids and see them as innocent helps too...

Yet the man isn't some type of exception to causality and the sequence or net of events that led him to the point of a crime or slapping another person. It's probably much more complex than the one with the kid, but it's in essence still that: education, experiences, circumstances, mental health, blabla. There must still be consequences to his acts, but not based on the feelings of the victim and punishment, as they aren't the best for the collective (even including the criminal and victim themselves).

(All this obviously doesn't take into account punishment as reflex, which is more of a self-defense anyway).

Even empathy itself is biased because of many variables. People can feel more empathy for others similar to them. Hell, people may even feel empathy for kittens and find them cute (nothing wrong with it), because of their round faces and traits that maybe trigger similar identifiers as seeing a human baby. Yet if they read in a newspaper some statistic about how many children die from hunger, the feeling itself (empathy) isn't likely to happen because it's less visual/more abstract information. Even if technically more accurate and relevant than seeing a video of cute kittens.

Empathy could also affect victims. Maybe a victim would feel much more empathy for someone in more similar circumstances, maybe even sympathy. And wouldn't even want to punish the criminal. However, for the same crime, the same victim could feel more relief and even joy punishing if it's someone stereotypically more prone to be perceived as something as reductionist as evil.

Avoiding DmC's mechanics in new games of the series.

If we make a list:

1) Give argumented negative feedback in detail and repeat it in the most reasonable situations.

2) Same but also expressing hate in some way (like insulting).

3) Only expressing hate in some way (like insulting).

4) Nothing.

Obviously I agree that 2 is better than 3 and 4. But I don't see how it could be better than 1, let alone 3 being the best. It's not even necessarily better than 4 in many situations.

I don't see the advantage, besides the local/individual relief (which is when you or I vent exposing some people, for example, but I don't think any of us does it for extra efficiency, let alone for the benefit of the whole group; in any case the arguments are for the group).

You may say what's crucial is that NT doesn't learn shit with the option 1. I don't even know all the details, but let's say it's just like that. Again, I don't think hate compensates it. Not even as additional highlight, because we can use language to stress/emphasize. Or even benefit from another type of feeling. Actually many times the people we expose love to use our insults as excuse for their behavior before said insults. We don't care in general because it's easy to refute and we do it to vent, but for NT is like leaving another door open to strawman us on another scale.

If they don't apologize after 1, for not listening to knowledgeable players and argumented feedback, it means that there are variables that we can't manipulate to make a change in them. Even in this sense they already did DE, so it's not like they are total bricks (not saying this fixed all the flaws).

We can keep educating others to stop asking for inferior mechanics (and I think we already won in this regard for the most, because DMC5's flaws aren't inherited from DmC's flaws, even if there are some key parallelisms like a significantly higher leniency to stay in the air compared to 4 and 3).

I wouldn't be against a light mocking or sarcasm and definitely not against repeating as much as possible why DmC has important flaws compared to previous entries. Even sentiments like disappointment. But hate (behavioral), especially at this point, for me is disproportional because of everything I explained (and if one inevitably hates, I wouldn't consider wrong to vent in something like a DMC server, etc.; but that's different).