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

blog.andymasley.com

191–200 of 216 posts

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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because your experience is siloed. People in other silos are seeing other headlines and other news articles, and wondering how you could not see them.

That makes me, a conservative, wonder what those other headlines are talking about and if those headlines are worthwhile or helpful. Because, regardless of what you are reading, the fundamentals of government are unchanged. So if people aren't reading about them, that to me just suggests they're ignorant.

The question is, is that a reason to not engage with them, or is it a reason to engage with them? The author seems to suggest we only engage with people in our silos which seems.. incestuous?

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

#192
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The names are printed on the ballot, along with party affiliation. No memorization needed. ... > but when the final election happens you generally only have two choices in the US per position and you simply vote for your party of choice. I want to discourage voting blindingly by party affiliation. Personally I think you should at least know the general ideas and policies of the candidate(s) you're choosing, even th…

> I want to discourage voting blindingly by party affiliation This seemed wise thirty years ago. I'm in a blue state that never had much of a problem electing republican officials up to and including the governor, and that worked well for us because every politician clearly and obviously put the state ahead of their party. > given the current political state the US it's foolish to vote for one of the parties It worke…

>> given the current political state the US it's foolish to vote for one of the parties

> It worked well for us until now. Today your call for ignoring party affiliation asks us to also ignore insurrection and child rape. That's asking too much, and I'm surprised you had the gametes to even float the idea.

You know, I really debated on including that line because I suspected someone would misinterpret it, but I figured it would be a sorta of subtle reference to show I wasn't trying to "both sides are equally bad" type of situation. I guess I was too subtle.

To put it clearly, the party it's foolish to vote for is the Republicans. I thought that was obvious given that broad state of things. However, I also think that people don't pay attention to the primaries or local elections just Vote Blue No Matter Who on election day, then get surprised we've end up with a bunch of milquetoast centralist Democrats instead of people willing to make changes like Mamdani or El-Sayed.

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

#193
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’m not against extremist ideas on principle. I have my own, the main one being that animal welfare is a much larger urgent catastrophe than most people believe."

This is clearly a cool take though and author knows it. This is not a polarizing view in the sense that anything about Epstein / Gaza / Trans athletes would be.

People find veganism so annoying it's literally a meme.

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

#194
I dont know how to convey this in a sticky way but these extremist beliefs are not organic. People do not organically become neo nazis or Marxist lennists. They are not randomly adopting these beliefs because of circumstances of the world.

These groups specifically target and craft messages and strategies. You can see it if you browse their spaces and they openly talk about it. They will have threads where they pick a common argument and refine the response. They then go into the space and make the bad side of the argument on one account and pile on it with the refined arguments. Praise all the people that agree as intelligent and demean all the people that disagree. It really does not take that many people to successfully flip a space.

Because the message is crafted its always just on the edge of what can be banned for. If they are banned its a good opportunity to act like it was a massive overreach.

People see these tiny little seeds getting planted and eventually when they are presented with the argument they reach the extreme position and feel like it was their own work.

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Veganism is so polarizing because on some level I think most if not all people understand that they are philosophically correct and that veganism is thus the morally right thing to do and those (like me) who still refuse to do it must live with themselves and their immoral choices every time they are confronted by a vegan or reminded of the feasibility of veganism

The pigs that my family eats have a short but happy life. I'm not so sure that no life at all is objectively better.

[dead]

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

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is a rational response to the corruption and inhumanity of the police and jails, though.

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

#197
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are some other examples in the thread, but two that come to mind for me are Charlie Kirk's killer and the guy who shot the cop in Alvarado, Texas after the ICE protest. Arguable another example is the guy who killed the United Healthcare CEO. But that said, most people who have drunk the kool-aid of one party or another are not nearly this extremist. Most of them just post nonsense on social media or even keep…

> Charlie Kirk's killer > the guy who killed the United Healthcare CEO.

Allegedly. Neither have been convicted.

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

#198
>The person is not super fired up and doesn’t just want to act as a soldier for their team

I wish I knew how to filter that last part.

On the internet folks even smell something that SEEMS not 100% on their side, conversation is over and they just want to e-yell at you.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is a rational response to the corruption and inhumanity of the police and jails, though.

You think that because you're left wing. A right wing person would think the arson threat was reasonable too.

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

#200
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some other examples in the thread, but two that come to mind for me are Charlie Kirk's killer and the guy who shot the cop in Alvarado, Texas after the ICE protest. Arguable another example is the guy who killed the United Healthcare CEO. But that said, most people who have drunk the kool-aid of one party or another are not nearly this extremist. Most of them just post nonsense on social media or even keep…

> Charlie Kirk's killer > the guy who killed the United Healthcare CEO. Allegedly. Neither have been convicted.

Well I mean someone killed them. So whoever did it is who OP is talking about.
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