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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)

#91

Post by antisthenes »

regularization wrote: post #62

> Suppose you become politically radicalized and become a Marxist. You get convinced that the labor theory of value is correct. > The number of people in the general population who will know enough about the history and philosophy of economics to give you a clear account of why Marxism and the labor theory of value is incorrect, He's correct most people don't know about labor theory of value. Which is why it's easy f…

I am with the author on how people get radicalized, but he could not have picked a worse example that Marxism as an example of extremist idea.

Equating Marxism to labor theory of value is akin to maybe equating economics to a supply/demand curve.

There are unequivocally true parts of Marxism, such as surplus value of labor, and the fundamental incentive conflict between a capital owner and laborer (which Marx deems exploitation)

The labor theory of value is also I think misinterpreted by modern economists as a price-setting mechanism, which it isn't. It's a mechanism to show that there is a certain floor on value of an economic good, which is raised every time constructive labor is applied to a product.

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

#92

Post by hackernud3s »

jhbadger wrote: post #90
hackernud3s wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe not as polarizing as those, but by "animal welfare" he doesn't mean volunteering at the local animal shelter, he's a vegan. That's pretty polarizing to a lot of people who see veganism as an attack on their whole existence because they like meat.

[flagged]

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

#93

Post by yen223 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #63
hingler36 wrote: post #26

I agree with a lot of this, and the framing is new to me and I really appreciate it. I especially appreciate the acknowledgement that there isn't necessarily anything wrong with having extreme beliefs; "extreme" is a label most often applied by antagonists of such beliefs. But I definitely feel like there can be a pipeline where one extreme belief may lead to others simply because they are also labelled extreme and n…

> I definitely feel like there can be a pipeline where one extreme belief may lead to others Once you accept a premise that majority consensus of well informed people can be drastically wrong, it's not hard to then transfer that horizontally from one domain to another. So if you accept the possibility that scientists made up climate change - why wouldn't they also make up COVID? or falsify risks associated with vacci…

What's also crucial is having your beliefs be backed by reality, and tossing away beliefs that aren't.

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

#94

Post by pstuart »

card_zero wrote: post #38
pstuart wrote: post #21

Here's One Weird Trick™ to avoid being an ideologue: be ok with being wrong. Flipping that over: aspire to be correct in your beliefs, not in "being right". Karl Popper (the man behind the Intolerance of Intolerance "paradox) identified it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

"Correct" is a synonym for "right". What you need is unrefuted.

Sure, the same intention is to not hold refuted or refutable beliefs.

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

#95

Post by card_zero »

pstuart wrote: post #94
card_zero wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Correct" is a synonym for "right". What you need is unrefuted.

Sure, the same intention is to not hold refuted or refutable beliefs .

No, they must be refutable! Otherwise you're stuck with them forever. This is all about ongoing error correction.

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

#96

Post by Izkata »

dataflow wrote: post #80
stryan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels a little disingenuous to quote this line and not the full section where OP was just asking you to know your local representatives. I've never called anyone about anything political, and I also haven't lived at the same address (or even in the same state) for 20 years but I still know at least who my senators are and some of my representatives. State elections are every two years; you have to almost actively not…

> Feels a little disingenuous to quote this line and not the full section where OP was just asking you to know your local representatives. [...] you have to almost actively not pay attention to not know anything about yours. Feels disingenuous to ignore the fact that what I said applies to the rest of the comment too, don't you think? If it isn't obvious: typically the first year after a move - likely more, at least…

> let alone keep remembering it for years.

This one for me. I have my own viewpoints and when elections come around I look up the candidates to see who best matches, then once the election is over forget pretty quickly. Unless politics is your entertainment it seems completely normal to not keep their names in mind.

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

#97

Post by bot403 »

hackernud3s wrote: post #55
imoverclocked wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think knowing about the branches of your government is a prerequisite to having an opinion or good argument about it. It’s not sufficient to just know that but it’s a good filter in the USA where a surprising number of people have “opinions” but lack the most basic knowledge.

We all learned what the 3 branches are in grade school. Some people forgot it. Liberals are more likely to remember it because liberal discourse (this thread for example) reminds them of it. It's a biased litmus test in other words.

It's inconceivable to me that you could forget the three branches. There are still headlines and news articles about the president , congress, and the supreme court. Those three things , talked about constantly, are a basic reminder of the most visible aspects of each branch.

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

#98

Post by hackernud3s »

bot403 wrote: post #97
hackernud3s wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all learned what the 3 branches are in grade school. Some people forgot it. Liberals are more likely to remember it because liberal discourse (this thread for example) reminds them of it. It's a biased litmus test in other words.

It's inconceivable to me that you could forget the three branches. There are still headlines and news articles about the president , congress, and the supreme court. Those three things , talked about constantly, are a basic reminder of the most visible aspects of each branch.

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.

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

#99

Post by gfrecvh »

> Their disagreements are also very visible entirely rooted in their pre-existing social identity.

This is such a nuanced point. I think that's why it's difficult to get a Jewish person to admit that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

> The reason it’s so easy is that most people are in fact “asleep” about most things most of the time,

Bingo against. I first had this exact thought in the context of people losing more and more time to distractions like Instagram tiktok etc. At the time people around me thought I was crazy (it's changing now). Such an insightful post.

> Many people adopt beliefs because it seems like the people they think of as good adopted them too

And not just beliefs. Fashion and all sorts of mannerisms. What is it with a certain segment of the population using their pants at the bottom of their asses? Did they all decide to do this independently? Or do look around and see that all their favourite gangstas do it?

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

#100

Post by somenameforme »

strken wrote: post #73
miyoji wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a prerequisite, but so is breathing. It's necessary but not sufficient. The bar I like to use is pretty simple: do you know who represents you in Congress (I am American so this is my bias, but substitute your country's equivalent if there is one)? As in, your state's two Senators and your district's Representative? If not, you probably don't vote or don't pay attention when you do, and you've definitely never c…

This particular test might be reasonable, but at some point you're just filtering out anyone who's not in your bubble, which is a problem when your beliefs are extreme because your bubble is tiny. Imagine a Marxist who refuses to discuss economics with anyone who can't explain dialectic materialism or enclosure.

Even in his particular test, he's filtering out people who are quite well informed on political topics but also feel that the input of the average person has effectively 0 impact. And this is quite a huge blindspot because political understanding/knowledge tends to precisely trend towards that worldview for many. A sack of money goes much further than a phone or picket.
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