73
votes
What radicalized you?
Radicalization has, of course, varied meanings to pretty much any person you ask to define it and it is both contextual and a spectrum. I will provide no definition of such here as this isn't a pissing contest and a person's definition is likely to be highly personal based on their own lived experiences up to and post said "radicalization".
Today is my yearly reminder of what I consider to be the impetus of what "radicalized" me.
So thought I'd ask all of you for yours.
I don't think it was really one particular thing, but seeing the economy go "mask off" during and after COVID really opened my eyes that work itself has very little value, and capital is really the only way to stay ahead. Seeing people make 5-10x their investment in a matter of years in the stock market and 2-3x their investment in their home during the same period while being stuck making the same wage as I was 5 years ago hasn't felt good.
In my mid teens in the mid 00's and watching my dad let his guitar gather dust, hearing him singing less and less, and watching him slowly become a rage driven zombie staring at work emails all day Saturday and Sunday.
I basically lost my parents to their work and I swore to never let the world take away my soul.
Man, that hits. Did they retire? If so, did the rage give way to things with strings?
I had written out quite a long response but turns out there's still a lot of trauma to work through and I was starting to feel quite emotional.
Long story short - Dad got cancer and retired early, mum retired not long after. He's been having various treatments for almost a decade now. They have a surprisingly high quality of life and travel lots, retirement suits them.
Sadly no return to playing music, but he definitely has a passion for guitar.
As for my relationship with them, they basically act as though they were model parents, I go to therapy!
(Reading through this before posting and realising it sounds very negative, both me and my parents are actually in a very positive place despite illnesses and fractured relationships!)
All good and glad to hear that they found other things to fill the time! Trauma isn't a clean feeling, hey? Explore the trigger deeper and it brings up all sorts of stuff.
Not sure if this applies to you the same way as it does me, but I'd look at my old man watching idiotic YouTube videos, not holding a conversation topic longer than 30 seconds and taking Donald Trump talking points as gospel, and I was so disappointed and sad for him. Maybe similar to how you felt sad about your dad and the guitar.
For me, I just had to realize that he finds comfort where he can get it, and even if I don't agree with what it is, I can learn more about the base reasons with a little digging, and maybe provide an alternative.
For you, I wonder if the guitar is no longer something that gives him joy. Music is often a young person's game as our circles still assign memory touchstones and belonging to it. It sucks that those things might not align for him anymore, but as a person, maybe he's getting value from something else. Maybe the guitar just hasn't been put out to pasture yet.
Moving backwards-ish in time from the present. I think I'm constantly being radicalized but these hit different topic points
There are dozens more smaller moments. But these are the pivot points or origins for a lot of my beliefs, some were more radical in the culture I grew up in than they would be now, but all were radicalizations in their own way.
Yeah I loved Pern growing up but was definitely more a Herald of Valdemar kid long term. (Who would also be a Healer and a Tayledras and....). What other books gave you fantasy versions of therapists?! That marriage wasn't two people becoming one, but two people (or more) walking together on the same path. I remember Pern made it clear that a pregnancy continuing was up to the woman whose body carried it. No wonder I ended up a queer polyamorous mental health professional with strong opinions about bodily autonomy.
I do love a good "adults believe the kids" story too. That matters so much, it's so easy to write the incompetent adults who ignore the kids to give the kids the agency to move the plot forward. But it's a bit like how Mr. Snuffleupagus had to be made a real character instead of Big Bird's imaginary friends. Kids have know they'll be believed.
(Both series do suffer in a modern lens. Less because of "woke" and more just because the tropes haven't aged so well. There's a lot of sexual assault. They tend to bury their gays. And the newer Valdemar books (which I still read) have got to be ghostwritten by someone much younger. )
But long before I could get a letter by owl, I could have fallen into the eyes of a magical angelic horse who would ensure I was never alone and go off to be a hero. And meet the tiny dragonets who could pop in and out of Between. And those made a huge difference.
I love the quote from GK Chesterton -
Because my stories taught me how to fight the dragons of my adulthood.
What is it?
This is a minor one, but I think it was what originally got my ball rolling, so to speak.
I really enjoyed video games as a kid, I had an N64 and GameCube and Wii and an okay laptop. To be fair, I did play them a LOT, but also I lived in the country and didn't really have friends outside of school hours so I didn't have a ton else to do. My parents became concerned, but unfortunately also bought into the "video games make you dumb/a zombie" classic boomer thinking. So, they unilaterally declared that I was to be restricted to 3 hours of video games a day. It's funny, as an adult that seems like plenty of video game time, but as an early teen it was a disaster!
I wailed and gnashed teeth etc, but I was a very well behaved child, so I followed the rules. I stuck to them religiously, partitioning my game time into 3 hour-long segments, and feeling incredible guilt whenever I accidentally went over the limit in a day, even a little.
...however, slowly, I began to realize that I was the only one keeping track at all; neither of my parents actually monitored my time, either with digital tools (which I doubt they knew how to use) or with just plain ol supervision. So, I slowly began pushing the boundaries, and sure enough, nothing happened. Oh sure, occasionally there would be a noticable breach, and there would be some posturing, but ultimately it would just return to the status quo.
This whole thing kind of gave me the realization that rules only exist so much as anyone cares about enforcing them. Unfortunately this lesson can be used for some pretty evil ends (just look at current US admin), but it's also enabled me to help both myself and others in ways that don't hurt anyone, but would be considered "off-limits". Basically, I learned that self-policing does nothing good for myself.
I'll keep this in mind as I limit my daughter to only old games and only an hour of it lol.
Joking, but sorta not really
I’ve had a wishful thought of pretending with my toddler son when he’s old enough that the Game Boy is a brand new thing and get him games for it just to avoid the aggressive monetization of most modern games. Unfortunately through his friends he would quickly realize that it’s not true 😅
I think even without friends, he'd realize pretty quickly that something was up when the screen was so different from any other screen he'd seen before -- the color palette and lack of a backlight would be wildly weird for a kid who grew up in a world of ubiquitous touchscreen smartphones and 4k TVs.
Trap him in a room with nothing but the Gameboy for a few days. Like us, he'll learn to love it because the only alternative is a salt shaker and the slugs out back.
One of the weird things is that if you're growing up now you will probably never see quality noticably improve; already with 2k screens and 4k TVs a lot of people quite happily was lower quality content because they can't tell the difference. You have to look really hard, really closely to see pixelation on modern screens, so I wonder if something like a blocky Gameboy screen would come across as weird and different to a kid (perhaps even cool), rather than worse. I guess it might be similar to how, for someone of my generation (mid 30s), black and white is an aesthetic and artsy rather than a technical limitation.
I think most (but still not all) people who find specific retro game aesthetics cool are doing so from nostalgia, but I think pixel art has already started to move beyond that into an artistic choice. The limited color palette would be the most notable feature of games for the original Gameboy, I think. I'm nearly 30 and my first handheld was still the Gameboy Color, and I think modern pixel art tends to only go for that specific type of limited color palette to appeal tl nostalgia (as opposed to other limited color palletes not directly tied to real-world console limitations). I think we're in the process of transition, in terms of timeline, when it comes to how pixel art interacts with nostalgia vs being an independent artistic choice.
And when it comes to the physical device rather than an artistic feature of the games, the lack of backlight would definitely shock modern kids I think. Talking about using an attached little lamp accessory to light up the screen in the car at night? I'll start sounding like my dad when he told us about how exciting it was when his brother got an answering machine. I wonder what the equivalent will be for this generation in 30 years.
The so-called sin of empathy, I guess. I don’t like to see others in needless pain, and I was not raised by ghouls that think that pain brings us closer to God, though I was raised in an evangelical Christian church.
I don’t buy into the ideologies at the core of modern conservatism. The more I stand fast and stick to my guns, the more I’m seen as a radical. I just don’t want people to suffer when we have the means to help them. Anything less than helping every person we can is unacceptable. And that makes me a radical, I guess.
I'm here with you. On this, the bystander effect of watching groups of people do nothing while somebody's in obvious distress.
Like, people. Fucking TRY
This resonates with me. I've always been on the side of empathy, understanding, and kindness. It wasn't the church for me, I just read a LOT as a youngster and it's what I learned from those tales that stuck with me. Care for those around you, be a person who's willing to give, and truly work to understand what is just, equitable, and right in the world. Oppression and a me-first-always attitude is the enemy.
I've observed a stark difference in my morality to a lot of my peers and society at large: to me, having the opportunity to do something morally good and not doing so is a morally bad act. The majority of people seem to see it as inaction and a morally neutral act, but to me not doing something when you have the opportunity to is pretty much identical to choosing not to do it, and has a moral weight.
I use the terms morally good and morally bad rather than just good and bad or right and wrong, because to me a choice can be morally good but wrong or vice versa, for instance supporting a friend when they're spiralling out is morally good, but not always the right choice (take my mental health being out of kilter and there being others to support them, for example).
My experience is that this is non-standard when it comes to views on morality, and people I've talked to about it before have viewed it as incredibly burdensome and something they wouldn't be able to sit with.
2017. Prior, I believed that folks, at their core, truly wanted to better themselves and love thy neighbor. Watching Trump get elected made a crack. Then watching how folks acted and reacted during the term just broke me. I walked away from everything I'd been working towards as an adult, my life path radically changed.
Then during that transformation, COVID hit -- I was out of work but ineligible for benefits since being out of work was a result of finishing my graduate program. I got a crappy poorly paid construction job, my degree was too academic for me to make any use of it for finding work. Seeing how people treated one another during a pandemic... was hard. I'm immunocompromised, people just didn't give a fuck, even my own family was directly responsible for me catching COVID at least one of the half dozen times. One day when my bestie was moving across the country I just snapped. Quickly dropped everything and moved across the country too. Another radical change in my life path.
Ending up here is probably for the best though. Having realized some things about myself, I would've been quite unsafe staying in my home state and am now in one of the safest states for someone like me. In self-discovery, I'm headed down yet another radically different life path now, trying not to let, well, everything, negatively affect where I go.
Each one has showed me parts of myself that are really me, parts I didn't know about, and parts that were facades. Me from 10 years ago wouldn't recognize this me. I hate where the world is at, but would I even know myself without these radical changes? Who's to say.
Good for you. Radical changes are necessary sometimes and it takes some real bravery to act on the guy instinct that you deserve better.
Thank you for sharing. I'm really glad you were able to get out and begin finding yourself, even if that was a really harsh experience.
It's hard when we realize that other people don't care as much as they ought to, both for themselves and their neighbors. The amount of hate in the United States scares me.
I've met a lot of people like you who have moved to my state, and are now thriving. I hope that your radicalization has allowed you to blossom and you're somewhere where people care more then they did where you're from.
I’m well aware of being considered a social radical, especially in the United States where we just kind of apathy-ed our way into fascism. But frankly I don’t think I was radicalized. There is no single event that explains why I think the way that I do. Instead, I just think the rest of the people are just basically asleep or are simply in positions where they don’t have to care about other people, so they don’t.
FD Signifier uses the term “pick-me” to refer to a certain class of black conservative person. They are people who adopt conservative politics in the hope that they can fit in and be “not like those other blacks”. I think that idea can be applied more broadly. There are many conservatives who still completely support Donald Trump as president even though they can see that his policies are causing people to be murdered on the street. The reason fascism spreads is that they think that if they can just ingratiate themselves with the fascists, they won’t be in the scores of people being put under foot.
And the thing is that these thought processes are the same for everyone out there. If you were to ask people “do you agree with every single government policy wholesale”, the answer will be almost universally “no”. So why aren’t they trying to change them? There will be many answers to that question, but they all boil down to the loss of social standing. Just being described as being a political activist is considered to be degrading to many people.
Loss of social standing is such a major threat, and when applied to a person's perceived social standing as it relates to personal wealth, popularity, beauty, I feel like it gets even more insidious.
As for who it affects -- whether black or otherwise -- I think it's people who a) have a limited scope of understanding of what it means to be successful, beautiful, popular etc, but also for people whose anxiety about these things is always high.
If you can't relax, how can you possibly form a new, more expansive definition of success? How can you create a community whose judgements if you aren't totally vapid, self serving and fearful?
Interesting point you make.
There were many things that lead me from right-wing country bumpkin to radical leftie. The assorted political dealings and economic crashes ruining my generation. Seeing the triumph of killing CFCs then promptly burying our heads on global warming...the effects of which were being taught to me in the 90s. Followed up by the foreverwar.
But the thing that really yanked the final lever to 'fuck the patriarchy' radical was becoming the dad of a girl. It was my first direct exposure to sexism "oh look Dad is babysitting." And all of the gross toxic man stuff started really hitting home, and I lost a few friends in trying to shut it down.
Everything that has happened since further reenforced not just the rejection of the right, but the need to crush its horriffic oppression of both its enemies and its pawns. Dobbs radicalized my wife from extreme pacifist into 'the left needs to start arming themselves,' so even the most levelheaded in my life has also been pushed to the brink.
Art is Resistance. Leave not a bare patch of concrete.
Force the psychopaths to confront their rejection of empathy directly.
The reaction to 9/11. The mass jingoism, ignorance, pure hatred, and lies in display during the run up to the Iraq war just made it clear to me that the whole American political system was broken. Then 2008 did the same for our economic system.
The fact that since this thread was posted, somewhere around ten of my countrymen have died from diabetes. Roughly 100,000 people in the US die from diabetes every year. There's famously 525,600 minutes in a year, which means roughly one death every five minutes. Every single day, conservative politicians kill over 250 of my neighbors just in this particular way. It's a pretty useful statistic when you want to appeal to emotion, even if it is massive overestimate (some of these deaths would not be prevented by better access to healthcare)
Ten people who were alive when this thread was posted, and are dead now.
I live in a country with state-funded healthcare. Our medical system is not top notch, but it is easily in the top 20 in the world. Still, people refuse to exercise and eat healthy. Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are top killers, even with treatment, because the known preventatives in lifestyle and the known outcome improvers in lifestyle are not adhered to by people.
This people problem is unrelated to politics. We eat junk, drive everywhere in giant motorized wheelchairs to our sit-down jobs, then go home to sit and stare at a screen and then blame Politician X from Y party for diabetes.
In my country we tend to push a lot of the blame for poor health onto the individual, but so many Americans live in food deserts where fresh fruits and vegetables aren’t available. So many Americans don’t have access to even a safe walkable park let alone a proper gym with all the equipment that they need to properly exercise. So many Americans don’t have good healthcare insurance that would allow them to feel comfortable and confident about exercising, knowing that if they were to be hurt by the exercise itself that they could get treatment for it, and not lose their entire livelihood over it especially if they had to miss work for recovery. When we talk about systemic issues, this is the sort of thing that we mean.
How well does your country do on those metrics? Do you have good food available to everyone? Do you have safe affordable places where people can exercise? Is your healthcare good enough that if somebody was harmed by the exercise that they could get care without losing their livelihood? If they had to take time off of work, would they be protected by the social safety nets in place in your society? I’m not making any accusations here, I’m just curious.
Did you know many people suffer from breathing-related sleep disorders? Something like 25% of population is affected. Sure, it gets worse with higher BMI, but lack of sleep translates to feeling less energized and thus people go for sugar instinctively just to cope.
People are also generally pretty shitty, unless rested.
Late 90's punk music.
To some degree it started with like the Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack kind of stuff, but eventually Propaghandi, Anti-Flag, Dead Kennedys, etc.
A lot of people in this new generation seem to forget how subversive music has been over the years. I see a bunch of people freaking out because a spanish language artist performed a super positive song talking about the struggles of people in Puerto Rico at the superbowl.
Back in my day we had anarchist punk bands openly calling for the downfall of the government, capitalism, and western society in general. Back then you could openly support these bands without fear of repercussion. Hell, they were played on the radio and included in That's What I Call Pop #43 or Big Shiny Tunes, etc.
Nowadays I feel like the way the internet is being policed we can no longer even say things like "Fuck George Bush!" online because we're currently being monitored by hundreds of different agencies.
So I guess I've been radicalized twice now. Once, 20 years ago for the whole political situation, now a second time re: the internet.
It was a pastor of a megachurch, of all places.
I grew up in the church. My parents, being Korean immigrants, attended Korean immigrant churches (which has its own fascinating ecosystem). I got immersed into the culture, volunteered in various capacities, and made Christianity a core of part of my identity. I grew up as most people know Christianity - the whole nonsense with altar calls, the "accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior" stuff, repentance, etc.
The first time I heard this pastor, I was floored. I had never heard a sermon like it, one that pulled in the history, the word analysis, dozens of references from various parts of the Bible, and the modern context all in one go. It felt like I was in a graduate level theology class but the content was relayed in a manner that even a layperson could understand and apply it easily. It was through this pastor that I finally heard a salvation message that makes sense - one that doesn't rely on the "personal Lord and Savior" crap and all of its inherent contradictions and questions.
This pastor eventually left that church and began his own church on one basic principle - the church exists to serve others. This church had no Bible studies, no prayer meetings, none of the usual programs that you'd expect from a church. Instead, the philosophy revolved around coming together once a week on Sunday to be equipped and to fellowship as a congregation, and then to spend the rest of the week being good neighbors to those around us. The goal wasn't to sequester Christians with one another but rather, to mingle and demonstrate Christ in our respective communities.
The church sadly fell apart during COVID but I try to live out those principles as much as I can. His message on salvation, in particular, changed the way that I look at modern church practices with altar calls and such and gave me a way to explain Christian salvation in a way that makes more sense to others.
My custody was signed away to Island View RTC when I was 16. That tore off the mask right quick.
Is that one of the "troubled teen" child abuse centers?
They have a whole section about it under the new name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevations_RTC#Controversy
Yes. It is now under the name Elevations RTC.
Not to get hung up on the definition, but before anyone starts pissing, I want to point out that I don't necessarily consider myself "radical," it's just that my views aren't very popular with American politicians. Anyway, there wasn't one specific thing/moment, but there are a few major influences that weren't things I grew up with:
Learning about the New Deal in high school. Massive infrastructure projects sounded like a pretty cool way to provide jobs, especially after learning about the military industrial complex a few weeks later. The majority of conversations about domestic policy that I heard at the time were centered around welfare and homeless people. I figured if we're so worried about "giving money away" why not just pay people to do shit?
Learning about how the US funded Osama Bin Laden and the Mujahideen in the 1980s. We were five years into the War on Terror and I had never heard anyone mention the fact that America used to be buds with the most wanted man in the world. I think it's more common knowledge these days, but it blew my mind and the minds of my classmates when my teacher brought it up. It was my first real "are we the baddies" moment.
Reading Manufacturing Consent and coming across information about media consolidation. After learning about Bin Laden's ties to the US, I went through a bit of a phase of reading books about the Bush Administration and the War on Terror. One of the books that stood out was No Questions Asked: News Coverage Since 9/11 by Lisa Finnegan. Finnegan highlighted how the media failed to fulfill its duty to challenge the Bush Administration in the wake of 9/11, but for the most part, it was framed as though it was a recent failure in a system that worked (or at least that's how I understood it 20 years ago). A year later, I read Manufacturing Consent, which recontextualized Finnegan's work as the latest examples of the system working as intended. That was a big one for me. Then a few months later, I procrastinated my way through a deep dive on the handful of giant companies that own the vast majority of media we consume (a figure that has only shrunk since then), which, again, blew my mind.
Bernie 2016/The rise of Trump. The other "radicalizing" moments came when I was 17-19, but I spent most of my 20s feeling apathetic. Then Bernie came out of nowhere and shocked me back into giving a shit. On one hand, it was a much needed reminder that there are a lot of people out there who share some of my beliefs. On the other hand, it was a much needed reminder of some of the things that piss me off. IIRC, just 11% of media coverage during the primaries was focused on substantive issues while the remaining 89% was focused on the horse race aspect, and ~2/3 of the coverage was focused on the Republican race. While Trump was able to build his movement with millions of dollars worth of free media, Sanders was immediately written off by both the media and the Democratic Party establishment (damn you, superdelegates!). That got me back on the horse and into organizing.
I have also had to get comfortable with the fact that my personal wellbeing is dependent on a system that strips entire populations of their personal wellbeing.
My journey only really started with Trump, though, before that it was easy to pretend that I too was a victim affected by the 2008 financial crisis.
Honestly, it was probably going to raves.
Learning that being who I am was awesome, that interactions with strangers could be awesome and that for a weekend, adults could (and should) celebrate, be creative and get stupid was so liberating.
The radical lesson was that boredom and apathy are choices, that we're all people who deserve respect and that you get what you give in this life.
In the words of kmfdm. "This is your life. This is your fucking life."
Treat it with the respect it deserves.
Seeing how fully and absurdly obstructive Republicans were during Obama’s tenure made me vow to never vote for a Republican in my life. If only I knew how much worse they were going to get!
Hopefully this clues an entirely new generation into that simple fact. Awful party with no redeeming qualities today.
My Parents
He was a boilermaker and a pipefitter. A union worker who would be gone for long stretches of times traveling to different powerplants and facilities and doing 7/12s for months at a time. Then not working for the rest of the year drawing an unemployment check.
I always heard about how we have health insurance, he has an annuity/pension, and gets paid nearly twice as much as the non-union guys on the job. And this was all because my father was a member of a union. I learned from the early years of my life the dynamics of the business vs. the everyday man.
I saw my mom struggle with consumerism. She was a nurse that worked over an hour away from home, commuting daily because there weren't good jobs in the area where I grew up. While my dad was out making money, my mom was out of the house spending uncontrollably. Racking up thousands upon thousands of dollars of credit card debt. Once, I saw her silently crying in the grocery store line as she started putting things away onto the shelf at check out. My parents' paychecks were being garnished. They always fought over money.
I saw my dad and mom divorce. Then my mom got cancer. My parents remarried just so my mom could be on my dad's health insurance. I was taught from an early age that just because you are sick, doesn't mean you can afford to go to the hospital.
I was the kid at the 9th grade lunch table picking fights about universal healthcare and why we were wasting billions blowing up kids in the Middle East. My classmates thought I was an idiot. One of them became a doctor. He messaged me on LinkedIn ten years later to apologize since he saw first hand how parents have to sacrifice to make sure their kids get the care they need.
The AI boom. When Chatgpt launched in 2022 it was immediately obvious to me that the covid economy would never recover and the best was behind us.
I was always a little bit of a doomer/prepper but thats the moment that radicalized me and I leaned all in. I’m glad I did, because my spouse got laid off of their six figure job last year and has been out of work for 8 months now and we woulda been screwed if we didnt already have a bit of a prepper attitude.
How have you prepped, and what are you looking to do in the future?
First thing is I learned to cook. I somehow had entered adulthood not knowing how to make anything more complicated than spaghetti. We were able to save 2k a month right away cause we could just cook at home instead of going out since spouse suddenly had all day to do things like make stock.
Second thing is I’m super frugal. I was desperately poor in my 20s but also my family is just pretty good with money, I was raised to not buy flashy clothes or jewelry or cars. I also take really good care of what I do have. My computers last forever, my car is 26 years old, my furniture is either hand me downs from my family or estate sale pickups. When we bought our house we bought it based off what I could afford on my old salary alone, we could have afforded four times what we spent on this house and now my salary is double what it used to be so even though spouse got laid off I am more than comfortable paying the mortgage myself for as long as I need to.
Third is I learned about cars. You can save so much money by maintaining an old car instead of buying a < 5y/o one. Ive had my car for 15 years. If you know about cars, you can be knowledgeable when shopping for a mechanic to tackle the stuff you cant do like timing belt replacement. A good mechanic can be only two of three things, fast, cheap, and wont screw up your car. You want cheap and wont screw up your car.
And the rest is dependent on owning a home, so may or may not apply.
Maintain two cars so you have a backup when one needs repairs.
Maintain a productive garden, veggies in the summer greens in the winter. Bonus if you learn how to can and dehydrate.
Whenever you go grocery shopping buy only whats on sale and buy 1-2 extra of what you’re getting if it has a long shelf life like grains or frozen food. Keep the extra in storage. Also lots of things are totally fine for consumption way past their expiration date depending on how you store it. Pasta in a cool dry place is good forever unless it gets bugs in it. Meat in the freezer is also good forever long as it stays completely frozen, freezer burn kills meat, not time.
Our house came with a well, and when we switched to county water we did the plumbing such that we could swap back to the well if we needed.
We have a diesel generator for if the power ever goes out in the winter and we need it for heat. Otherwise when the power goes out we just leave it, its not typically more than a day.
Gas ovens are great for when the power goes out, and grills are a good second best.
Is your partner still looking or are career change plans on the horizon?
Theyre still looking for jobs related to what they were doing before. Its tough though, they made data visualizations for a living, and ai agents can do that by itself now.
As somebody who's also starting over, it's not easy. Good luck.
Hes in his 50s I don’t think starting over is an option at this point. He’d just get whatever he can and make as much as he can make until he cant work any more and then I’ll support us.
That's a good question. In retrospect, the answer i gave probably doesn't even fit the definition of 'radicalised' so much as 'crystalised' or 'solidified'.
Though, if any of my beliefs are radical, I don't think there ever was a defining moment so much as a slow accumulation of experiences over life, and that's not an easy answer to uncover myself let alone share in a relative short answer here.
"What radicalized you" is a meme that's gone around social media for a little bit. People usually reference seeing or experiencing injustice in such a way that they're determined not to let that (or any) injustice occur to others but rarely do they imply or intend violent criminal action.
It's usually less about "solidifying" because it implies that the thoughts were there previously just less certain. But it depends on the individual's interpretation.
Ah! That explains a lot. I had no idea it was a meme. I was so confused... I deleted my previous comments as they make no sense now. Thank you for clarifying that.
No worries, it's definitely a case of the connotations of the word being different in different contexts.
Getting stoned and watching WWII documentaries and other world history documentaries with my history obsessed college roommate from Spain.
Was that the best idea for my mental health? Probably not. Did it give me this weird drug induced intense visceral understanding of the realities of war and fascism? Yes, yes it did.
I partly joke, but watching WWII documentaries with a European who loves to talk about those wars and stuff and grew up in areas still scarred by the war with family that were directly affected by the war was a very interesting learning experience.
And being stoned like made the entire experience also very real because all I could keep thinking was "Holy shit, this REALLY happened... to like REAL people as real as I am, and every moment they lived they experienced that moment like I'm experiencing this one right now... they went outside and heard the wind, they had headaches, they had worries and heartbreaks, they had little hyperfixations and memories of their childhoods," and I got super hyperfocussed on putting myself in the shoes of and like visualizing myself in the bodies of these soldiers and holocaust victims looking through their eyes and imagining what it must have felt like to them in the moment.
Including the last moments in the gas chambers or firing squads, imagining their anxiety, the thoughts. I put myself in the position of the soldiers and prisoners forced to clean the chambers and throw the bodies into the mass graves, like all the way to the slippery cold skin of naked corpses. I got lost in these experiences, good and bad.
To be clear, none of this was something I particularly enjoyed or speak about with any kind of glee, it was not a particularly great experience and AGAIN was probably not great for my mental health long term. But I do think it was important because it solidified this internal notion to take these things seriously and that we shouldn't fuck around and let that happen again and that we need to use ANY means necessary.
Unfortunately that's opened my eyes to how much the current state of the world rhymes with past fascist and authoritarian regimes in history.
It's frustrating because I really think a lot of other people in the US have been so disconnected from war and dictatorships and fascism that it's a distant concept to them. Like even though they're worried about it, they don't have a frame of reference of the reality of what can happen. I see so many people who say they're scared of what's happening who are still fucking around with things that ultimately don't matter.
For instance, whenever Europeans come together and say "America, what the fuck are you doing? DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS! Do a general strike, riot, anything!" and all the Americans are in the comments saying "We can't, we have jobs and families, we're being squeezed and we're just trying to survive."
It's like, oh you sweet children, your families and jobs will be in danger IF you don't do anything. Survival is going to be a lot harder if we don't stop this sooner rather than later, and by any means necessary.
On that note, I have also noticed a stark contrast between Americans and people from other countries when it comes to their opinions on fighting back that I think is interesting and noteworthy. Americans tend to say things like "I can't fight back, I have kids, I need to be there for my kids," while people in other countries tend to think "I need to fight back. I need to fight this so my kids can have a better future."
That's kind of a generalized statement, doesn't apply to everyone 100% of course, but I see this general outlook as one of the biggest underlying ideological differences between Americans and the rest of the world.
And I guess that's what frustrates me and radicalized me. A lot of Americans have been blessed with peace and prosperity in our homeland for so long they don't have any comprehension of just how bad things can get for them and their families if they do nothing.
Like the reality is, there were probably some Jewish families who genuinely thought the same exact thing, "I can't fight back, I have to think of my family," right up until the moment them and their families were being herded into concentration camps.
I think it does the holocaust victim's memories an injustice if we don't learn from what they went through and how them and their families got to that point to make sure that our families, and anyone for that matter, don't go through what they did.
But unfortunately it seems that the only way for Americans to learn is the hard way, and sometimes I feel helpless to do anything about it.
I think the one that will always stick with me, was during my senior year of undergrad, I had two classes on the same day, Politics of the Middle East, and History of Iran.
The Political Science class would give these complicated theories as to the justifications that governments would have for policy and behavior, both in and outside of the middle east. The class had a electronic module (simulating statecraft in a civ-game kind of way) that didn't work properly, and the professor seemed really apathetic to anything that wasn't purely theory. (for further context, the professor was a queer woman with a disability, and left wing sentiments.)
Then, in History of Iran, I had a professor who explained the rich, detailed history of the region, outlining specific interventions and policies from the west, with logical outcomes in the region with first hand sources. She genuinely cared about the subject, gave her own experiences as someone who had visited and studied in Iran (both before and after the 1979 Revolution), and was willing to discuss both theory and actual history.
I found myself realizing that a majority of what I was learning in Political Science of the Middle East completely neglected the history of the region. It really hammered home the disgust I feel with how political science is taught and understood in our country, and it's pushed me to do my best to see past rhetoric.
I think that experience was the defining moment in my radicalization, where I realized that people would fall for rhetoric time and time again, no matter the political leaning, and that it was my personal duty to make sure I do better.
I would be curious to hear if you could share some insights or specific modes of inquiry that help you not fall for the rhetoric. Often I feel either like being completely swamped by falsehoods, and if I manage to look past the rhetoric, the result is a strong feeling of alienation or living in a ghostly unreal reality (since so much of public discourse is misleading/rhetoric).
I'll kind of go over what I learned to do to avoid falling for narratives. Here's a comparison in topic coverage from my two classes:
History of Iran covered the colonialism of the early oil industry, the 1953 coup, the Iran-Iraq War. These were all significant influences on the region and its politics.
Politics of the Middle East sought to simplify the political landscape. It tried to quantify the political alignment, resources, languages / culture of the region, and we were to understand the region based on it alignment towards American international interests. The additional context just didn't matter.
Discussion would completely skip over the additional context. Here's this in practice:
Political Science Version:
Iranians hated the Shah, who was pro-American. The Shah was overthrown in a theocratic revolution in 1979. Iran's relationship with the US shifted following his ouster, and Iranian Students held the US Embassy hostage. Presently, there is concerns they could use their oil wealth (12% of the world's reserves) as an economic weapon against the US.
Everything said is completely true. It just frames things in a way that doesn't establish important context, rendering the statement more morally neutral. Additionally, it would focus on the statistical figures, economic factors, industrial outputs, etc. This establishes a narrative that makes US interventionism more palatable.
History Version:
In 1952, The UK and US overthrew the president of Iran, following his nationalization of the Oil Industry and installed the pro-American Shah as ruler of the country. The Shah became an authoritarian ruler, and cracked down on civil institutions. Following a crackdown in 1978, mass protests lead to economic halt, and the Shah fled the country. A populist religious leader, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to the country, and was elected under a referendum.* In the midst of this, the American Embassy was taken hostage.
Specifically, the context of the Shah being an unpopular ruler installed by the US for oil interests, and Ayatollah Khomeini being established via democratic referendum, are all details that inform on the political reality of the situation. They shouldn't be ignored, and it adds additional moral context towards the US's relationship with Iran. It re-frames the entire history. While this is a narrative, it highlights the impacts of choices made by the US.
My takeway was that you can say a lot of things that are true, without actually touching on the truth of the matter. It's called creating a narrative.
Specifically, the way to not fall for this, is to do your best to understand that sometimes specific aspects will be over covered to draw your attention towards a narrative. Ultimately, the information you are told probably has a narrative attached, and you're being told the information in an order to support that narrative.
I don't consider myself a radical by any means but I do have beliefs that others may find radical and make people very angry. I have to watch myself because I speak of those issues very naturally as a normal part of a conversation.
I am some kind of a prison abolitionist for example. Most people are okay with the idea because they think about non-violent crimes and other minor stuff. But I really mean that we should work towards no incarceration whatsoever as a goal in the next 200 year or so. I never mean "release all of them now! Let chaos reign!" but that's what everyone reads.
Lots of stuff "radicalized" me but that is probably rooted in a deep philosophical skepticism and an understanding of the shortcomings of criminal justice (including how several sources of evidence are not nearly as scientific as we think). I was also persuaded by how disproportionately incarceration affects black men (I am a black man).
Ultimately imprisonment is contrary to the human condition and I don't believe we can deny that at the same time that we work so hard to avoid similar conditions when it comes to other animals. I'm not saying to demolish all prisons in collective rage, but maybe we should look very seriously at ways to advance society to a point where they are progressively less needed.
The understanding that my mother didn't choose me. While she chose to become a parent she didnt decide to have exactly me as a child.
This became the foundation for my parenting — that no matter what I must take responsibility for bringing a person to this world — and my view on children in general: that they are just humans with a little less experience and sometimes worse fine motor skills than adults.
[Edit, adding:]
Also, I think I was radicalised in 3 other ways by boredom (sobriety from alcohol) and 2 specific subreddits (intermittent fasting and barefoot:ing)
These 4 things are where I seem to confuse other people the most for going outside the box.
Co-founding a company and selling it. Being in management at any company as well.
Both of these experiences have exposed me to investors, contracts, and executive leadership. Both have made me realize that investors are absurdly overvalued in our current business models. I can clearly see how short term thinking and investor first thinking almost always damages both the end customers of the business as well as the actual employees of the business.
I think stock options and profits interests are almost always a scam. Unless you are awarded them at the moment the company starts you almost certainly are getting them set at an inflated price that will ensure you get minimal value out of them. Unless you are in some sort of edge case with absolutely explosive growth.
Some of the letters were in red, so they seemed important.
I don't understand what this refers to.
(I'm 40+ and non-USA:er, so try to consider that when explaining, thx <3)
A lot of prints of the bible put Jesus's words in red text. Actually reading what the book says can be jarring for some people.
I see, thanks
A very popular labor and delivery nurse on Tiktok read the red parts and a lot of conservatives got very mad at her... Like legitimately that's all it took. She didn't even make other points in that video. Just the red parts.
That’s the thing that frustrates me about the rise of Christian fundamentalism. The entire concept is a lie. They say stupid things like “only the King James Bible is the word of god” and then they go on to cherry-pick the worst parts of it to follow as their gospel, and if they pay any attention to Jesus’s teachings of love they twist it into very dark things (“I’m shunning you because I love you and want you to come back to Jesus!”).
I've heard of pastors having their congregants get angry if they preach about the beatitudes. It reminds me of how some people interpreted NPR's reading/tweeting the Declaration of Independence on July 4th as an attack on Donald Trump.
Yeah I know it's anecdotal and rare but the fact that it happens at all is concerning
Btw you accidentally double posted!
I really think this needs to be the source of any overwhelming opposition. It won't remove all justifications; the goalposts will keep getting moved. But it will undermine their sense of moral superiority nevertheless.
Oh my. And here I am thinking this is about Blue Prince game.
It's on my list but I haven't gotten to it yet. Is there a spoiler-free way you can tell me what the red letter connection is in Blue Prince?
I think the most spoiler-free way is just to say that color symbolism is a big part of Blue Prince in terms of both its puzzles and its lore, and in particular the colors red and blue are very important. Honestly this is already probably a little closer to spoilery than I'd like.
Definitely try it out tho. It's not for everyone but it is a really well-crafted game.
Sorry dude, it just reminds me about this game, and nothing more.
The mass rto mandates, not only by large corporations but also our governments, over the past couple years.
It hasn't changed where my political leanings lie or anything like that, but I would say it's made me feel a lot less optimistic about.. society and the people with/in power, I guess. Ripped bare where alignments lie, and it's not with workers just generally trying to balance life, parents trying to juggle childcare and careers, or the environment and reducing roadway emissions.
I was in my later teens on my way to therapy and got into a minor fender bender. I had insurance and it still completely wiped out my savings and ruined a lot of other things. Then it happened again with health insurance and a major illness. I had plans and then they were completely derailed and changed the trajectory of my life forever.
It made me into who I am today and I’ve learned to not live with the thoughts of what if this didn’t happen. But I sometimes do feel like a sleeper agent waiting to activate in an otherwise polite normal life. If I ever get the opportunity to affect meaningful change in the world I would not hesitate for a moment.
I wouldn't say radicalized but my views on immigration have changed substantially due to the current situation in my country.
Firstly, a bit of a history lesson. In 2016, we voted (by a 52% to 48% vote) via referendum to leave the European Union, but we didn't actually leave until 31st January 2020. The vote was largely fuelled by immigration, especially when you look at the spike in hate crimes against Poles and Eastern Europeans that occurred after the result came out.
The Tories won a huge electoral landslide in late 2019, in large part because Boris Johnson promised to "get Brexit done", which he did. The thing is, Boris was never anti-immigration. Millions of new arrivals came into the country in what has been dubbed the Boriswave. We've seen net migration figures far higher than at any time where we've been in the EU.
Another thing Boris Johnson did was use hotels as temporary accommodation to house asylum seekers, with one of the main benefactors of this being Britannia Hotels. The use of asylum hotels has cost us billions each year, which could have gone into building more social housing instead. They are now slowly being phased out, but now seekers are being housed in newly-built council homes. The government denies this but multiple news sources have found that this is a lie.
Fast-forward to 2026 nearly two years into Keir Starmer's tenure. We have an employment crisis (especially with entry and graduate level roles), a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis, and Starmer, being the cosplay-Tory that he is, has not put in the changes needed to improve things.
Is it fair that we roll out the red carpet for anybody here arriving on a small dinghy whilst we fail to look after our own citizens? This is where Labour and the Conservatives have failed, and what has people split between the far left (do the humanitarian thing and build more homes for everyone) and far right (shut the borders.)
While I do feel for the plight of those fleeing famine, poverty, persecution and war, we need to fix our economic problems first, otherwise we run the serious risk of voting in a right-wing populist government. And that would be a horrible thing.
Unfortunately, the only parties here endorsing left-wing and socialist policies are also the ones who want open borders.
I'm going to gently push back on your 'radicalization' here, in regards to immigration.
First, I think that you are drawing a conclusion here that providing support to immigrants and citizens is not inherently compatible, and that it can only be 'one or the other.' I think that there exists a form of government policy that can simultaneously provide for both refugees and citizens with their needs. I think that it is in the interests of people in Power, regardless of political alignment, to not provide that. That's not even factoring in, say, the treaty obligations of the UK towards refugees.
Second, I think that the money being spent is not the issue you think it is. The money being spent often is just constructing substandard housing, and is almost certainly a lower sum spent on other nonessential items.
Take for instance, the Post Office Scandal, which cost some several billion pounds, both in software upkeep costs, and in victim settlements.
But going back to the cost figures for refugees, 15.3 billion is 1.5 Billion pounds a year, spent out of a budget (2025) of 1.416 Trillion... is 0.001% of the U.K. Budget. That's not even figuring out any profiteering by the hotel and landlord chains are doing.
Also, Tom Nicholas did an excellent video on the accommodation ships a few years back (and is an excellent youtuber, in my opinion). Ultimately the accommodations are terrible.
Finally, I think that you are dehumanizing refugees, and I personally would like to evaluate that. Have you personally interacted or spent time in your community with refugees and immigrants?
Let me give you a quick story from my local community.
I was at a local (queer) pub last summer, waiting for a coworker who ended up not showing up. As I waited, I struck up a conversation with a woman at a nearby table who was sitting alone. It turned out the woman was a refugee from the Rwandan Genocide. Her English wasn't great, but we were able to freely converse.
She described her experiences with the Rwandan Genocide, which were horrific. She had been injured in the conflict, and had debilitating arthritis, and PTSD from her experiences. As such, she was on state based disability and food stamps. (in a side note, she was not queer, she just liked the pub)
I cannot imagine having lived her experiences. I can't imagine having to flee my home, and speak a language I do not know in an unjust country that does not look out for the needs of its citizens. At the end of the day, she used spent some of her money, earned via being on disability, at a pub on alcohol. Regardless, she is a person, just as I. A human being just trying her best to survive with the cards she had been dealt.
And ultimately, as a queer transgender woman, I might have to flee my country. Again, what makes me different? If I am forced to flee after seeing the bodies of my queer brothers and sisters in the street, if I am beaten and forced to live in a place that's hostile to me with a debilitating injury, will I be as pleasant and respectful as she? I hope I never have to find out.
But they won't. The labour party isn't going to fix the economic problems. Kier Starmer has long since abandoned any political ideals he had. Having a political football like immigration is ultimately just a part of neoliberalism. I agree that something needs to be done, but this is as much an issue of distraction from actual issues and rhetoric than an actual problem with immigration.
I agree that we could easily provide for both. But that would involve electing a government that is willing to embark upon a massive housebuilding programme. With how many MPs are landlords (especially in the Labour and Conservative parties) with an obvious conflict-of-interest in doing something that would lower their property values and rental incomes, it's clear to see why we've never addressed this after Thatcher abolished Right to Buy.
Refugees? Apart from one or two Ukrainians who fled over Russia's invasion, I haven't.
To my knowledge, there is a Britannia Hotel in my city where asylum seekers have been housed temporarily since COVID pending application review. That hotel is pretty much closed off to the public for understandable safety reasons, especially as Bristol has been the site of a few right-wing protests.
Immigrants? Absolutely. I've met a lot of people not originally from the UK from all over the place, including Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Germany, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, China, Hong Kong, Slovakia, the Philippines, Hungary, Poland, Cyprus, Qatar, Lebanon, the USA, Canada and a few other places.
I don't think any party has a particualrly great solution, especially not Reform UK, Advance UK or Restore Britain.
The best is probably the Green Party, but I think their open border policy is going to lead to skyrocketing international competition for an already stretched job market. Their foreign policy of denuclearisation is also unthinkable when we're in the midst of a proxy war with Russia.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate you doing that.
I understand your point of view. I'll freely admit, no British party seems willing to deal with the issues that are plaguing the UK, from affordability, to immigration, to climate.
I'd counter that this is inherently by design. I think that their solutions to these problems are ultimately ineffectual, and only serve to distract or motivate the public.
That's not on refugees. That's on the political parties.
Therein lies the problem. What do we as a democratically elected society do when our democratically elected officials do not serve the needs of the people?
This isn't about the refugees, this is about a government that's willing to ignore the needs of its people, citizen and refugee, and to draw excessive attention to a group of people who are disenfranchised in society.
Let me make something clear here. On a personal level, I live in a community that has been ravaged by a government trying to 'deal with the Somali Refugee problem.' Activists here have had to rally, protect our neighbors, and do our best to make sure the federal government does not disappear people. I pray you never live in a place that decides some people are not welcome there.
Activists and Politicians who could have spent time working on making the community stronger, have had to pivot to preserve our community. While this has been happening, the federal government has slashed environmental regulations, private business has tried to move in to build data centers, and nonprofit funding has been gutted, leaving more people out in the cold.
Specifically, for the context of this message chain, I am refering to anyone who has relocated to a country due to political instability. I'm states based, and 'immigrant' has been used pretty interchangeably with refugee, and other terms in contemporary political discussion.
If you have the desire to re-evaluate your position, I think you could take a look at any activist groups that are advocating for refugee rights in your region. Learn about what someone has had to go through to get to your country. Try to understand that they're ultimately a victim in a broken system. If they had better options, they would have taken it.
I will fully agree though, your government has done a disservice, both to refugees and to the citizens of the UK, in how the issue of refugees has been handled. I will continue to say though, it is a feature, not a bug, of your government.
Finally, if I can offer you another personal anecdote. I offer you this one, because I really do think I understand your perspective, and I'm offering you this to empathize.
On a personal level, I'm not universally for Trans people being able to participate in all sports. It's not about the evidence or ideas in either direction. In fact, I'm mildly ashamed to take this position, and I only take it because I'm that scared for Trans rights as a whole.
Personally, I think the moral cost of some trans people being excluded from an activity, is outweighed by the potential benefit of the issue not being a cudgel for the right to use against Trans people. What I am saying is, "If I say 'trans women shouldn't be allowed into women's sports,' then the conversation can move on to a different topic, and that's worth it."
However, I'm still arguing for people to be excluded. I'm arguing for my people to be excluded.
I don't know if that's the right answer. I often assume it's wrong. I just want as many of my queer and trans community to survive.
And I see Gavin Newsom saying “[The Democratic Party is] spending a disproportionate amount of time on pronouns [and] identity politics." I have to wonder, is he on our side? Is he hedging his bets? Are we another pawn in his game for power?
I figure someone who's a legal immigrant to the UK could have similar feelings towards refugees. At the end of the day, we're all just pawns in a game for power.
As with most things there is a lot of complexities here. I can't speak for the entire country but I will use Edinburgh as an example since thats where I live. The local council underspent on their housing budget by £60 Million pounds. Edinburgh Uni also develops overpriced and I assume shoddy student accommodation for international students that removes housing from locals. SO Edinburgh has some seriously grim housing issues right now but where that £60 mil go? Why not use it for its intended purpose?. It would be dangerous to assume councils around the country are doing the same thing but considering how capitalism works I wouldn't be surprised that rampant cronyism and corruption isn't taking place. I recently joined a Tenants union in the hopes that I can help fight for better housing and streets for all. It has really opened my eyes to how difficult the system is which is the purpose.
We could be helping refugees and local people at the same time by not absolutely screwing both over and then pointing to the other as the problem. This video does a decent job explaining migration and why the numbers spiked before brexit. Also the book Asylum for sale is a good read on how corporations profit from the entire industry that surrounds what we are seeing right now.
Considering the current state of affairs in the middle east we are most likely going to see a lot more people on the move soon and the government is going to claim innocence when they are in fact guilty of funding multiple conflicts in the region. Money that could be going to helping the people here but instead its destroying countries, creating famines and throwing entire regions into poverty. I don't particularly believe in electoral democracy so voting in the Greens or whatever left wing party won't solve the underlying problems that the world faces but I suppose its a step in the right direction and will hopefully slow the war machine and environmental destruction the current regimes are happy to over see.
I think my reply here is also a reply to the main question of this post. My radicalization was cemented the year I went and volunteered in the Balkans with refugees and saw that the EU is murdering and torturing people who are just looking for a better life.
Most recently I feel very radicalized against gambling. If you had asked me a few years back, I was probably a bit negative towards gambling but would've argued that it should be allowed with some restrictions. Now that the unlimited gamba apps have been deployed everywhere on mobile I recognize gambling as a societal cancer that must be eradicated. The worst part of gambling is how it spreads like a cancer, infecting everything that it touches.
There has to be a reckoning with all these major gambling app providers who are getting insanely rich off exploiting fundamental weaknesses of human psychology.
Spring/Summer of 2020 in general.
If I had to choose, it might be the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Abolish the death penalty.
I had never heard of this guy, so I went and read the entire Wikipedia article and followed several links and read a bunch more and I can safely say I still have no idea if he did it or not, which I guess is enough doubt that he shouldn't have got the death penalty.
Being in a junior management position in a large company after years as just an individual contributor and seeing the slimy shit they do that proves they don't care about their employees at all has made me into quite an anticapitalist.
Layoffs and stock buybacks at the same time?! Sure! We love our people! How are YOU driving shareholder value today? Ugh.
Seeing the video of George Floyd being murdered.
8 minutes and change of non-AI, non-deepfake, non-cut video of a police officer who looked like he could not. Give. Less. Of. A. Shit. That he was suffocating a man he had sufficiently restrained to death.
I’ve had interactions with police in the past that demonstrated they, at best may be willing to help you but unable to due to constraints or incompetence OR at worst, will actively fuck with you. They DO NOT care about you and will only protect their own.
The police are a government sponsored gang. Know your rights and FUCK THE POLICE.
Sorry for the wall of text!
Like others said, not really one event but continually seeing themes of corporate and individual greed reflected in almost everything I see every day. Natural habitats destroyed, land bought up and consolidated by companies that have no interest in stewarding it or making it in any way enjoyable for people to be in. Working in warehouse (only about 6 months; decided to quit instead of killing myself) and seeing how they treated employees as less than people, caging them into a concrete patio during breaks, and yet still patting themselves on the back for "being a great place to work" but no we can't pay you more because then we'd have to take your benefits away and actually you're really being paid more than those other companies so stop complaining! Seeing in my new, more fulfilling yet still exhausting job in SpEd how my colleagues and our students are treated like second-class citizens, not offered as many opportunities, not funded well or provided support to help hone their craft or even just god-forbid have time to eat lunch sometimes. Seeing the echoes of what could be good or even great, but it's not because people are too worried about the budget and the status quo to bother stepping up and making the top-five largest district in my area actually pleasant to be in by expanding opportunities for students and staff. More and more and more that I could go into, but this has just become a rambling rant and it's all nothing new! The only solace I really have is the natural world, which I want to immerse myself in, but it's constantly under threat. The world is exhausting :)
Trump's first election made me kind of an anti-conservatist. Why would anyone vote for such a buffoon?
Russia's war against Ukraine shifted me to a far more global militaristic opinion. Now I see a lot of things through that lens and view smaller conflicts as part of the bigger one, choosing who I personally ally with based on that.
Seeing the super-charged (thanks to Covid and stay-at-home policies) effects of social media on teenagers, close by, shifted me from pro-free speech, rather radically liberal position to a more moderate one. The rise of AI has strengthened this position -- now I think only proven human adults should be allowed to participate without limits.
Trump's second election made me kind of an anti-woke (in the absence of a less loaded to describe it). Why would anyone lose to such a buffoon?
It's been a weird journey in the last 5 years. Perhaps it's more like a deradicalization.
No one thing really.
But a true and fun story is: At nine or ten years old, I heard a guy talking on CNN about how education is a long-term investment, and should be considered a higher priority, budget-wise, because of that. I was on board, and then they said: "Thank you for your time, Mr. Dukakis". And I was blown away because this was a name I associated with Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, these evil men my parents talked about that wanted to kill Americans. I technically knew he had run for president the year before. But I was so oblivious, I never thought about what that meant beyond why would anyone vote for an evil guy? That was a formative moment in learning skepticism.
The more fun question is, what radicalized AugustusFerdinand?
This post was made on March 12th, right?
So maybe Covid?
Or the invention of the World Wide Web?
Fukushima?
Madoff?
I guess for every day, there is a list of like 20 things that could potentially radicalize a person. And it could be something completely personal, too.
A skateboard and a backwards Sox hat. /j