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The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

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Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#161

Post by verall »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #31
gibbitz wrote: post #7

I think the problem here is that we have a bias for those who agree with us that outweighs our patience in searching for oppositional opinions that are well founded. From a liberal bubble it is quite hard to find conservative viewpoints that aren't based on unobserved apriori belief or strawman arguments. It feels like being a heavyweight surrounded by lightweights and it makes me feel like I need a better sparring p…

> I think the problem here is that we have a bias for those who agree with us that outweighs our patience in searching for oppositional opinions that are well founded. This is a very agreeable statement, but I'd add that politics is not about finding the Kantian truth of what's best for everyone (inside the country? globally? also immigrants? lazy and ugly natives?). It's about balancing interests. Of course, the ide…

Like balancing whose interests?

I'm thinking you're meaning like "politics is about trying to understand/impact what could plausibly occur", whereas the "truth" you mention is inherantly unconcerned with that, but I think there's also value in finding and debating it.

What's implementation without a target? Is politics concerned with improving conditions for people, or is it just balancing enough interests that we don't start killing eachother?

It's shades of both I think, and there's fierce disagreement about both the global optimum and how to or if it's worth getting there

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#162

Post by tanseydavid »

inigyou wrote: post #145
aftbit wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, it looks almost identical, just mirror imaged. Lots of anger and fear, a strong certainty that they know the full story about every issue and that the other side is evil or idiotic. No grace or space in their hearts to consider that many of today's contentious issues are actually complicated, with overlapping and conflicting ethical arguments.

I'm noticing a lack of any concrete examples of left wing extremism in this comment. Right wing extremism is like, that lady from the UK who made a tweet asking everyone to burn down a hotel full of migrants.

"Defund the police/abolish prisons" is a good example IMHO.

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#163

Post by Gormo »

benj111 wrote: post #152
Gormo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a speculative theory that core of the "woke right" did not originate from pre-existing conservative politics, but in fact emerged from segments of the political left finding themselves marginalized by the mainstream left-wing's increasing focus on identity politics over the past 10-15 years. Many people departing left-wing communities for this reason began to reframe their political identities in opposition to…

Have you any examples? I'm kind of in the same boat as I don't agree with the identity politics, but I still count myself as left of centre.

> Have you any examples?

Much of the "alt-right" narrative seems to revolve around embracing identity politics but siding with the outgroup in the left's version of the group-conflict story. The traditional right rejects that entire narrative. My perspective is that someone rooting for Darth Vader is still a Star Wars fan.

Another example is the economic thinking that has become pervasive in MAGA circles. Zero-sum thinking, arguments that sound like the LTV in all but name, support for tariffs, and a belief in centralized state intervention to perceived economic problems: "industrial policy" is bureacratic socialism in all but name.

> but I still count myself as left of centre

Meanwhile, lots of people who see themselves this way are now embracing an "abundance agenda" that sounds a whole lot like a reframing of traditional conservative and libertarian economic arguments.

It's as though the whole political spectrum has been tossed into a food processor, and everything's mixed and matched every which way.

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#164

Post by zappb »

inigyou wrote: post #128
121789 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t agree actually. Have seen many busy working professionals fall into “extremism” and it’s pretty much always the same. They have a few issues they are firm on and align with one party, they don’t like the other side because of this, then they only hang out with people aligned with their views and only consume media aligned with their views. Quickly turns into lunatic talking points, and I’ve seen it happen to bo…

I've only seen this with the right. Can you describe what it's like when it's left?

Their hysterical obsession with Israel.

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#165

Post by doom2 »

zappb wrote: post #164
inigyou wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only seen this with the right. Can you describe what it's like when it's left?

Their hysterical obsession with Israel.

Can you expand more on what makes it hysterical or an obsession, compared to any other issue one might have interest in?

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#166

Post by moritzwarhier »

verall wrote: post #161
moritzwarhier wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the problem here is that we have a bias for those who agree with us that outweighs our patience in searching for oppositional opinions that are well founded. This is a very agreeable statement, but I'd add that politics is not about finding the Kantian truth of what's best for everyone (inside the country? globally? also immigrants? lazy and ugly natives?). It's about balancing interests. Of course, the ide…

Like balancing whose interests? I'm thinking you're meaning like "politics is about trying to understand/impact what could plausibly occur", whereas the "truth" you mention is inherantly unconcerned with that, but I think there's also value in finding and debating it. What's implementation without a target? Is politics concerned with improving conditions for people, or is it just balancing enough interests that we do…

I thought about balancing the interests of those who have power, by all means short of war.

And of course this begs the question who has power and who should have power.

The will to improve living conditions comes from the interests of those who have political power, in my view. You can say because of democracy if you like. Or, more cynically, dependence on labor and consumption (Fordism), or, more idealistically, ethical values in powerful people themselves, and all of that are nuances and not absolutes I guess.

But I wouldn't say that my definition was precise.

I just wanted to point out that it is not a given for politics to have the goal of optimizing utilitarian interests, maximizing wellbeing or long-term goals such as protecting people.

In other words, participants in politics do not only discuss how things should be achieved, but also what should be achieved.

If that makes sense: this is what I meant by "balancing powers". I'm not sure right now how to map it to the two poles you describe.

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#167

Post by zahlman »

joenot443 wrote: post #125
miyoji wrote: post #11

The good part of this: don't fall into the trap of believing the proposition "an idiot disagrees with me, so I must be right". That's solid advice, idiots believe countless true things and geniuses believe innumerable false things. The intelligence of a random interlocutor has nothing to do with the validity of their opinions, really, so it shouldn't serve as evidence one way or another. Generally, I try to pay atten…

About 70% of American adults can name all three branches of government. That leaves about 81m Americans who cannot. I'm sure you were a very clever 8yo, many of the people here spent a lot of their childhood being told they were clever. That said, suggesting that the other 30% of the country less clever than 8yo you should be excluded from political discussions is somewhat illiberal in my mind. Perhaps the notion we'…

> don't deserve a political voice

This is a false dichotomy. There's a huge gap between "permitted to choose between the presented options in a democracy" and "able to make a wide audience care about one's political opinions".

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#168

Post by zahlman »

mindslight wrote: post #153
miyoji wrote: post #11

The good part of this: don't fall into the trap of believing the proposition "an idiot disagrees with me, so I must be right". That's solid advice, idiots believe countless true things and geniuses believe innumerable false things. The intelligence of a random interlocutor has nothing to do with the validity of their opinions, really, so it shouldn't serve as evidence one way or another. Generally, I try to pay atten…

> his bar is beneath the ground I agree. In general you're pointing out one failing of this post, but I think there are a whole host of things that are missing from it to be anywhere near a substantial guide. Don't fall into the trap of " an idiot disagrees with me, so I must be right " is a great observation/rule! But it's like the first level of the reasoning game (if the game even has linear levels). There is valu…

> ... and find their more-reasoned arguments refreshing, you're right back at... emotionally attractive rather than rationally considered.

How do you figure?

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#169

Post by shiandow »

gfrecvh wrote: post #149
shiandow wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're doing a meta discussion on the quality of arguments it ought to be pointed out that Popper is not exactly modern any more so like objectivism, falsifiability is not some kind of holy grail any more. A bigger issue with string theory is that we don't fully know how to make it describe reality, but it still describes some general principles we can test and learn from and I think it's the most successful quantu…

Without detracting from anything you said, all I meant is that a lot of people make the argument of "we can't test it" when it's likely that the "can't" is purely a technological limitation. If those people knew the definition of falsifiability as stated on Wikipedia, they wouldn't make such a stupid argument.

That's a fair point, I'm not even sure I was even arguing against your comment. Mostly just pointing out stuff I thought was relevant.

Re: The main way I've seen people turn ideologically crazy (2025)

#170

Post by zahlman »

Gormo wrote: post #150
benj111 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interestingly, he has a lot of people on what he calls the "Woke Right" (e.g Tucker Carlson) who also hate him. Is that interesting? I get accused of being a labour supporter in conservative areas and conservative in more left leaning areas. It's all part of the problem being discussed. If you don't precisely agree with someone, you must be one of 'them', and when you're in the middle, or have nuanced views, both e…

I have a speculative theory that core of the "woke right" did not originate from pre-existing conservative politics, but in fact emerged from segments of the political left finding themselves marginalized by the mainstream left-wing's increasing focus on identity politics over the past 10-15 years. Many people departing left-wing communities for this reason began to reframe their political identities in opposition to…

> segments of the political left finding themselves marginalized by the mainstream left-wing's increasing focus on identity politics over the past 10-15 years.

I can confirm a group like this exists (that describes me) but I can't even remotely make sense of a "woke right" label for it. I don't even consider myself "on the right" at all; I consider that the identity of leftism has been taken from me. Which is fine insofar as I never cared much about identity in the first place; but infuriating in that all of society is seemingly buying into an entirely false narrative of leftism.

> but did so by associating themselves with the left's own caricature of the right

Only for satirical purposes, really. And there are more points of conflict than identity politics or collectivism and economic interventionism (I assume this can reasonably be rounded off to "support for the welfare state"). In particular, climate and energy policy.

> why we're seeing policy positions that increasingly resemble socialist ones being advanced by "conservative" politicians.

It's more that people insist on putting that label on anyone who doesn't play ball with leftist identity politics. Some accept it; I absolutely do not.

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