We all make excuses for behavior that is objectively wrong because we like the people and agree with most of their opinions and find things to respect and admire in their character.
It makes it that much harder when we turn out to be wrong.
We all could join cults because we all want to get along and defend our peers.
Yeah, and sometimes we turn out to be defending the indefensible. This is not a fun place to find yourself, but as long as you're willing to revisit your opinions, it usually sorts itself out.
But if no one sanity checked stuff, the other kind of cultish crap could happen. In the very distant past, I have been stampeded, locked into groupthink, behaving like a clone, and when I snapped out of it I was pretty disgusted.
So anything that smacks of it, even for "righteous" reasons, causes me to go "Stop, question, verify." Some folks get pretty damn nasty pretty fast when they get asked "Are you sure?" Not an easy position to take. Maybe if I was better at it, but I'm a geek, not a socialite.
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It makes it that much harder when we turn out to be wrong.
We all could join cults because we all want to get along and defend our peers.
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But if no one sanity checked stuff, the other kind of cultish crap could happen. In the very distant past, I have been stampeded, locked into groupthink, behaving like a clone, and when I snapped out of it I was pretty disgusted.
So anything that smacks of it, even for "righteous" reasons, causes me to go "Stop, question, verify." Some folks get pretty damn nasty pretty fast when they get asked "Are you sure?" Not an easy position to take. Maybe if I was better at it, but I'm a geek, not a socialite.
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