@theotherbrook I feel like I'm always a part of some cults. I can only strive to be aware of them and choose which to remain in.
@hans That's a fair way to look at it. On the other hand I've learned to differentiate between things I'm building an understanding of and things I'm struggling to find sense in.
If each step down the road feels like it has truth, it's probably got merit. If each step feels like it takes faith, it's probably a bit culty.
Now I'm remembering a decade ago when a successful serial entrepreneur I know told me his new business idea. I said it seemed like something that had already been done with limited success. He replied "Yes. But I'm going to record transactions in a blockchain." He wanted a new idea so badly he was writing a business plan for a faith-based app.
That's a specific tech cult, but the same thing happened when I professed that I would inevitably rise to a high level of a pyramidal hierarchy purely on merit or that giving fascists a platform can only reveal the wrongness of their ideas. I *wanted* those things to be true so much that I made them articles of faith and ignored my doubts. Learning to let go of faith and listen to my doubts was painful, but necessary.
@theotherbrook I love that you connect the faith of tech hypes and your own wishful thinking on social issues. It seems so much harder to smell our own bullshit on the latter. Kudos for refining your sense of doubt!
(These days I have untested *faith* that we could save the American republic through multiparty democracy such as advocated by Unite America.)