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AshwinV comments on 9/26 is Petrov Day - Less Wrong
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On the topic of war (nuclear or otherwise), it has been mentioned elsewhere in LW, though I cant seem to remember, that one strategy often employed by politicians advocating war, is to "dehumanise" people on "the other side". The first example that comes to mind, is the slang "Gook".
I don't know whether there has been any social science experiment conducted, that demonstrates the willingness of people to pull the trigger/ flip the switch/ pull the plug more willingly, the less the victim/subject (who should be at the receiving end of the consequences flowing from the participants actions) resembles a human being.
In slightly more vivid terms:
Group 1 (Experimental group) is shown six pictures(ostensibly representing real-life creatures) - 3 photos of people and 3 photos of melmacians#ALF_character) and are told they get paid 10$ for every time they press a button that would make a picture and/or the subject of the picture explode.
Group 2 (Control group) is shown the same set of photos and have the same incentives, with the difference that they are asked to interact with melmacians and/or are shown videos melmacians and their antics and have a good laugh/cry about it.
My prediction is that the experimental group would be far more likely to pull the trigger. I know this sounds similar to the experiment in which people press a button to administer electric shocks (that experiment establishes people's behavior in the face of authority), but I propose this experiment to observe what people behave like when they are armed with the heuristic of a human face.
Isn't it likely that the spread of television and the internet that characterized globalization in the last three (or so) decades, has had a highly beneficial but hidden side effect of humanizing people living across the globe?
It certainly hasn't wiped out conflict and I'm not an expert in world affairs, but I suspect there might be a co-relation between countries experiencing a high amount of militant activity and the lack of global programming that the average citizen in those countries face.
In the US is possible to vote for politicians that favor deploying the military without pulling the trigger yourself.
Soldiers in turn get special training to decondition them and make them pull the trigger.
People often hate familiar outsiders more than unfamiliar outsiders, because outsiders who are more familiar are seen as more of a threat to their way of life.
I think any effect you may see would probably be in the opposite direction: hatred causes lack of global programming (because cultures that hate others want to censor) rather than global programming causing lack of hatred.
Fair enough. I did have in mind a kind of self-fulfilling cycle, anyways.
I was just thinking that the most intense hatred would probably be most concentrated among a few people in power. They then censor global programming so that familiarity is not built up among the masses. This serves two purposes, one that they can justify themselves as leaders as well as ensuring that they continue to remain in power. It's sort of like the chicken and the egg problem.