As someone who finds alt-right ideas interesting to read about and discuss, but is at the end of the day a conventional mainstream liberal, the advice I’d give you is: you should chill out.
Discussion of political topics at this site, as at Moldbug’s and other related ones, and also the vast majority of blogs and sites all over the political spectrum (with the possible but tiny exception of a handful of blogs connected to the D or R party apparatus or to insiders affecting government policy decisions) is essentially mental masturbation, something that will not affect in any way the future of humanity. It is just a way to pass the time some find interesting, as others prefer solving Sudoku puzzles or pondering Newcomblike problems.
Your feeling that a group of ideological “outsiders” who don’t share your values is growing in influence, and might take over if they are not “cordoned” and lead to some horrible catastrophe, sounds like the kind of feeling appropriate for a small hunter-gatherer tribe where if a dozen or two enemies of you join forces and take over you will have a very bad time. It is not appropriate for the objective situation of a forum with several thousand people, and much less for a country of 300 million people or a humanity of 7 billion people. The future of the world, even the future of LW, is not going to be shaped by the occasional crypto-racist (/sexist/fascist/etc) posts of a handful of people.
Sufficiently bad government can make a large difference, so it’s not irrational to oppose bad ideas. On the other hand, most bad ideas don’t get a chance to take hold. And on yet another hand, if you don’t like something, it’s very tempting to evoke the worst possible consequences and make them seem as vivid as possible.
Sure, it is reasonable to oppose bad ideas and to worry about worst-case scenarios. But when these are objectively low-probability, the reactions of “horror and rage” seem disproportionate.
As someone who finds alt-right ideas interesting to read about and discuss, but is at the end of the day a conventional mainstream liberal, the advice I’d give you is: you should chill out.
Discussion of political topics at this site, as at Moldbug’s and other related ones, and also the vast majority of blogs and sites all over the political spectrum (with the possible but tiny exception of a handful of blogs connected to the D or R party apparatus or to insiders affecting government policy decisions) is essentially mental masturbation, something that will not affect in any way the future of humanity. It is just a way to pass the time some find interesting, as others prefer solving Sudoku puzzles or pondering Newcomblike problems.
Your feeling that a group of ideological “outsiders” who don’t share your values is growing in influence, and might take over if they are not “cordoned” and lead to some horrible catastrophe, sounds like the kind of feeling appropriate for a small hunter-gatherer tribe where if a dozen or two enemies of you join forces and take over you will have a very bad time. It is not appropriate for the objective situation of a forum with several thousand people, and much less for a country of 300 million people or a humanity of 7 billion people. The future of the world, even the future of LW, is not going to be shaped by the occasional crypto-racist (/sexist/fascist/etc) posts of a handful of people.
Sufficiently bad government can make a large difference, so it’s not irrational to oppose bad ideas. On the other hand, most bad ideas don’t get a chance to take hold. And on yet another hand, if you don’t like something, it’s very tempting to evoke the worst possible consequences and make them seem as vivid as possible.
Sure, it is reasonable to oppose bad ideas and to worry about worst-case scenarios. But when these are objectively low-probability, the reactions of “horror and rage” seem disproportionate.
Konkvistador, maybe you would mention your recent… little incident? (If no, then sorry, never mind.)