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

blog.andymasley.com

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

#51

Post by pessimizer »

This is some pseudo-profound Third Way radical centrist horseshit.

> Consider two categories of people:

> 1. The number of people in the general population who will object to Marxism.

> 2. 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, and can speak to your very specific concerns about worker power and class conflict in a way that gets across how modern social theorists and economists give a more compelling and ethically coherent account of the way the world works, and do so patiently and thoroughly.

Really this is: let's consider one possibility, that I am right and that you are extreme and wrong. Everything is going well, except for the radical weirdos trying to stop me from doing what I want.

Congratulations on being a vegan. 20% of the population doesn't have health insurance.

I'm no Marxist, but this regurgitation of neolib talking points is not being smart enough to refute a Marxist. The problem with today's "Marxists" is that they don't know enough to defend their own positions, and react with rage when the holes in their absurdly shallow knowledge gleaned from social media posts, Jacobin articles and hipster podcasts are confronted by simple, direct, good faith questions that they don't have answers to. It's not that people aren't well-studied enough to refute their extremism.

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

#52

Post by EA-3167 »

galleywest200 wrote: post #48
EA-3167 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always everyone is entitled to their opinions, the question is how much should the rest of us care.

Just like how sometimes I consider how little I should care about a social media frequenter’s opinions. I am, for better or for worse, getting near the last willing comment I am going to leave on this, or any, social media site. That is not due to age or illness, it is due to enshittification. Not by the admin but by the populace.

Very bottom of the page, you can see links to the long and storied history of people saying “HN is bad now,” and why it’s an opinion you don’t really need to share.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I’d throw in for free that when you’re done at a party… say goodbye to your friends and leave. The party in general doesn’t need an announcement of your dissatisfaction and departure. Safe travels.

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

#53

Post by hackernud3s »

miyoji wrote: post #14
jrflowers wrote: post #12

I like that the author doesn’t clarify what constitutes an extremist idea aside from suggesting that he doesn’t believe in any. “Extremism is when people, who are dumb, don’t know facts unlike me, who is very smart” is a kick ass theme for an essay

"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.

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

#55

Post by hackernud3s »

imoverclocked wrote: post #17
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…

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.

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

#56

Post by ajb »

I think this is a good observation, but I think the diagnosis is slightly wrong. I don't think the process of becoming dismissive of opinions different to yours is limited to those with "extremist" views.

The people who agree with you are a biased sample of the population. But so are the people who are willing to openly disagree. So we have both a "bubble" and an "anti-bubble". This is especially true for people with unusual views, but it's also true for everyone.

I had a colleague who was part of an idiosyncratic religious denomination, which believes in the literal truth of the Bible etc. He was a nice guy and mostly we avoided talking about this. The one person who raised it in social conversation was the most tactless guy in the office. (To be fair he wasn't that tactless. Someone has to be last). Lots of people online are looking for a verbal fight. The decent people who know you socially or via work, but disagree with you over some political or religious issue, will usually avoid talking about it with you. That applies just as much if you have a mainstream but not universally held belief, as if you have an extreme one.

The problem here is that there's not really any incentive to seriously engage with a person with opposing views, even though our society would be a lot better if people did it. Lots of people seem to think that freedom of speech just means freedom to harangue those you disagree with, and aren't interested in the search for truth.

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

#57

Post by irishcoffee »

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 would counter with people who believe the earth is flat. This is in fact an extreme belief. The best part is, I don’t care if people believe this, not even a little a bit.

I care when they start arguing with me and trying to jam their belief down my throat. I didn’t even ask, you brought it up and you’re mad at me because I disagree.

I think this is the more interesting point to consider. Having a belief, any belief, is probably just fine. It’s the second part that’s the issue.

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

#58

Post by sosodev »

pessimizer wrote: post #51

This is some pseudo-profound Third Way radical centrist horseshit. > Consider two categories of people: > 1. The number of people in the general population who will object to Marxism. > 2. 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, and can speak to your very spe…

> Congratulations on being a vegan. 20% of the population doesn't have health insurance.

These two things are completely unrelated.

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

#59

Post by pdonis »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #27
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

I only recently learned that most peoples beliefs are not "factual beliefs". Since most of mine are, I thought that's how other people work. I think Popper may have made the same mistake by assuming "correctness" is always the primary value a belief offers. The other kind of beliefs are "Symbolic beliefs." Symbolic beliefs are not held because they are true, or because they are useful on their own. They're held becau…

> I only recently learned that most peoples beliefs are not "factual beliefs".

I think this greatly underestimates the number of completely mundane, innocuous factual beliefs that everyone, or at least everyone who is able to get through their lives without serious mishap for any length of time, has to have. For anyone in that position, most of their beliefs have to be factual beliefs, and have to be true at least to a good enough approximation to allow them to function. We tend to ignore such beliefs in discussions like this, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.

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

#60

Post by delis-thumbs-7e »

In the pie chart 100% of people one meets disagree with ”extremist” belief of Matxism. I guess, if you move in very conservative right-wing circles, but I still doubt if this fella understands how pie-charts work.

On the general topic, most people do not have arguments and they do not know how to construct one. They cannot articulate what they believe, since they don’t really know what they believe. Most things people say are just stuff copied from whatever TV-show or meme they saw last. However, if you go around starting discussions on politics with ”what are the three branches of government” most people who actually understand the topic just walk away. I also don’t think ”hey everybody must he stupid except me” explains how people radicalise - or whatever ”idelogically crazy” means. Rather it tells more about the writer and his… problem.

I have another suggestion: just fuckin listen. A truck driver or a cleaning lady might have very original and interesting ideas about the world, if you just shut the fuck up and let them talk. Then there’s about quadrillion firebrands across the internet shouting at a video camera almost none of which are worth your time.

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