The Main Way People Turn Ideologically Crazy
How not to turn ideologically crazy
The author argues that a common dynamic drives people into ideological extremism: encountering uninformed critics who make terrible arguments, leading the believer to wrongly conclude their idea is more correct. Using examples like Marxism, veganism, and nuclear weapons, he explains that most people are poor critics of any niche ideology, and that this should not boost confidence. He advises seeking out knowledgeable, calm critics and ignoring the rest.
The average representative of the opposing side is almost always going to be pretty terrible, but that’s because the average person just doesn’t know much about your hyper specific thing, not that the other side is terrible.