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0 pointsSpivak5y ago0 comments

I think this emerges as a collective version of the "my views are always normal" fallacy.

* Anyone who drives slower than me is an idiot and anyone who drives faster than me is reckless.

* Anyone who's worse than me at me at Overwatch is a noob, anyone who's better than me has no life.

* Anyone who's views are less extreme than me is a sheep, anyone who's views are more extreme than me is a radical.

It takes a lot of effort to realize that I'm on the "radical" spectrum for a lot of my political views (I'm hella progressive) and that that isn't a bad thing, but neither are other people's, in my view less aggressive, ideas for tackling problems.

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gugagore5y ago

It certainly feels tricky because "radical" can apply to ideas about goals and also to ideas about ways of achieving goals ("tackling problems").

It's hard to suss out people's goals. They might not understand their goals themselves, and "goal" may be an abstract and unknowable thing. But I think it's necessary to find some goals to be a bad thing in order to figure out your own politics.

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