> I don't mean this unkindly, but your information diet has incredibly serious problems if you haven't come across any legitimate criticisms of the BLM org in the past.
This is a fair point, but most people are happy to go along with the narrative rather than think critically about these issues. If you aren’t wallowing in a post-truth groupthink bubble, the world of today is really uncomfortable and lonely sometimes.
> If you aren’t wallowing in a post-truth groupthink bubble, the world of today is really uncomfortable and lonely sometimes.
I dunno... For the most part, my close friends are too intelligent to have this tendency (likely not a coincidence, but implicit assortative matching), but I have a couple close friends and many less-close friends who aren't. It seems to bring them a lot of emotional pain and frustration.
If your worldview is effectively religious, the heretics who blaspheme against the One True Flawless Way by disagreeing with you are reduced to actively-evil monsters. If you happen to live in a modern, pluralistic society instead of Reconquista Spain, this is a recipe for constant frothing fury at the tens of millions of people who don't share any given viewpoint you may hold. To my eyes, this is wayyy more uncomfortable than always being the person disagreeing,even if minorly, with the groupthink session.
Regarding loneliness, the part of my brain that enjoys the seduction of blind, rabid group membership seems to be missing (eg I've never been a pro sports fan either, despite being a fairly avid sportsman in the past). I can understand how this would be lonely for many, but... I dunno, being a bad person is fun, I don't think that's much of an excuse for doing it.
From inside a groupthink bubble, it seems like your half of the population are reasonable and logical people who are destined to win in the end, and the other side are an irrational and stupid cult. Which is definitely stressful, but at least there's the relief of thinking that your side are the good guys.
It's a lot more bleak when you realize there are virtually no good guys, and a lot of the people who might seem like good guys at first are either grifting or gazed too deeply into the abyss.
> It's a lot more bleak when you realize there are virtually no good guys, and a lot of the people who might seem like good guys at first are either grifting or gazed too deeply into the abyss.
It's more to grapple with philosophically, but it's much easier day to day. Having a model of the world that makes sense instead of expecting people to be more intelligent or decent than they are just makes everything go more smoothly. At least, that's my experience.
And it's not as misanthropic or nihilistic as it sounds. I have friends whom I wouldn't consider particularly intelligent, and the ability to accept that about them makes for much smoother interactions and over time has led to deeper connections over other parts of our respective characters/personalities.
This is a fair point, but most people are happy to go along with the narrative rather than think critically about these issues. If you aren’t wallowing in a post-truth groupthink bubble, the world of today is really uncomfortable and lonely sometimes.