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.
- miyoji
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 attention to good arguments against my ideas, not good arguers.
I think the advice for who to listen to is very bad, though. He calls it being "slightly elitist", but his bar is beneath the ground. The example for discussing politics is knowing what the three branches of government are - I knew that when I was 8 and I don't think I had anything interesting to say about politics back then. I definitely couldn't have given a meaningful critique on the latest policy debate, and neither can anyone possessing merely the most basic knowledge of rudimentary facts on the topic.
- mxmilkiib
DUCK DUCK GO MURRAY BOOKCHIN!!
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/lewis-herber-murray-... (1965)
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post... (1971)
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2018/06/15/how-my-fathers-ide...
- TrackerFF
For the past few years, I've seen a dozen of friends or acquaintances turn "ideologically crazy", and they can be roughly grouped into:
A) Onset of schizophrenia or other serious mental illness, followed by psychosis. This is actually the most common I've seen. But it is also the easiest to spot.
B) Some crisis event in life, followed by finding / joining a community. Some were hit hard by this during COVID.
I've yet to personally see people that have their, well, shit together and live busy lives turn into ideological crazies or extremists - where there is no mental illness. Of course, it could be that they just hide it better. Don't use their public accounts, etc.
I also think it is much easier to become radicalized today. Once you search for any extremist views on say social media, you'll be bombarded with it. Just belonging to a certain demographic could trigger a non-stop barrage of extreme wing influencer content in your feed.
- woodruffw
I think the advice at the end of this post is essentially sound: you should pre-filter your evaluation of others’ opinions through their understanding of related topics. But that isn’t elitist, and I think we shouldn’t call it that! It’s a form of media and cultural literacy we should be encouraging people to have; there isn’t (and shouldn’t) be anything elite about it.
- cgyvbunji
> it’s very very easy to be negatively polarized by a ton of bad conversations with normal people about it, until you feel like the whole rest of the world is crazy
Why wouldn't the world be crazy, though? What reason do we have to assume that the world is not crazy? Most reasons are tautological when you really unpack them.
- hingler36
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 not for a more recognizable reason.
- card_zero
Pretty good. I have something to say about this part:
> most people are in fact “asleep” about most things most of the time, not super thoughtful in how they develop beliefs
Which is later echoed, but differently, as:
> the average person just doesn’t know much about your hyper specific thing
This is skirting around whether they have a duty to know about your thing. The first phrasing suggests they do, the second suggests not.
Given that your thing is probably stupid and wrong, and life's too short, it seems reasonable to me that most people can't give you good arguments about it unless you invite them to take a pleasant and entertaining walk around your reasoning and maybe sleep on it and come back later. If the subject can't be made pleasant and entertaining, you're probably out of luck. This unfortunately still applies even when your thing is genuinely a great insight.
- gibbitz
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 partner, I just can't find one...