Re:How not to turn ideologically crazy
by Eisenstein on Sunday August 09, 2026 @08:36PM
(#49237872)
> Rational people will pick the ideology which has the fewest contradictions. Irrational people will choose that which serves them best.
Perhaps everyone is irrational?
How we would know otherwise if we can make irrational things rational just by thinking about them hard enough?
Yes, it's a spectrum. The best test to figure out the extent of your own bias is to make a list of ways which in which a particular ideology benefits you.
For most of my contrarian ideologies, they are harmful to me in most ways except "Protects my ego by redefining personal failings as system failings." Most of my contrarian ideologies have this characteristic but this point has been getting weaker over time; I don't have much pride left. I'm literally working for a bank now.
Or maybe I work for a bank just to prove to myself that I don't care about pride? Getting kind of elaborate.
That's not to say my beliefs are exhaustively battle-tested and correct; maybe other people have information that I'm missing but in my role as a software engineer working across multiple industries and some politically sensitive projects, I've had access to information and first-hand experience that most other people haven't.
I've witnessed things first-hand which most people have not seen and even if I told them, they would doubt it because it doesn't make sense when checked against mainstream narratives.