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[Rayblon]

I've been browsing the internet as usual this week, but I came across something... It was a video about Anonymous, supposedly by Anonymous. I stand by most of their values, but this video made me realize something. It's easy to string people along and turn their passion into some vicious, foaming-at-the-mouth fury just by pointing a finger. For a few minutes, I was inspired by this little bit of propaganda... until I realized that, of course.

I was just manipulated. They had gotten in my head that easily. It's pretty scary, realizing it for the first time. How many other times has this happened to me without me noticing? I flipped to another video in the YouTube sidebar, and eventually came across the video "FEMINISM vs. FREE SPEECH". I was a feminist, believe it or not, but I watched it through with a level head. I disagreed with the idea that the title would have you believe.

Toward the end, I realized that the video was correct. It talked about an event that happened where a group of feminists protested outside of a men's rights activist meeting. Someone pulled a fire alarm, and the video came to a close with a clip of a woman calling a male bystander "****ing scum". It enlightened me as to why the nonsense on the Anonymous video elicited the emotions that it did. I stopped thinking when I watched the Anonymous video, and just let what was actually complete nonsense take hold of me. I became the perfect little worker bee, simply assimilating into the group I agree with. I concluded that we'll only think rationally about things we're passionate about when we learn to fear passion, and our inherent inhumanity by extension.

And that's why I decided to subscribe to a more equalitarian outlook.

[pspeed]

I believe that if you can't adequately play devil's advocate for some other side of a contentious issue (dropping the ridiculous ones of course) then you are too polarized to see the picture clearly.

The problem is that I think there is a large section of the population that is intelligent enough to realize this which automatically makes them moderates.  The general view that "all extremes are wrong", etc... which makes them that much likely to use their voice.  It's hard to argue for the middle road.