Obsession seems to me like a milder form of mental illness—the kind of thing that everyone has to some degree and we classify it as mental illness only when it is strong enough to interfere with the person’s life in general. Problem is when it manifests in people with power, in a way that does not prevent them from getting power. The underlying problem is that many people would prefer to see the country led by an insane member of ingroup, than by a sane member of outgroup. Politics is often seen as a zero-sum conflict, rather than a collective attempt to figure out how to make the country better for everyone.
Vice signaling is a difficult thing to explain, when most people seem unable to even understand that things can have 2nd order effects.
The desire to blaspheme seems to me like some kind of status move. If many people feel low-status, they will be tempted to join. (The politics as usual only makes things worse, because people desire to make their outgroup feel low-status. The problem is when they succeed.)
...many of these things seem downstream of the zero-sum approach to politics and maybe life in general. I mean, if you adopt the perspective of a zero-sum life, then words like “good” and “evil” lose their original meaning. The only thing that remains is “good for ingroup / bad for outgroup” and “good for outgroup / bad for ingroup”.
Obsession seems to me like a milder form of mental illness—the kind of thing that everyone has to some degree and we classify it as mental illness only when it is strong enough to interfere with the person’s life in general. Problem is when it manifests in people with power, in a way that does not prevent them from getting power. The underlying problem is that many people would prefer to see the country led by an insane member of ingroup, than by a sane member of outgroup. Politics is often seen as a zero-sum conflict, rather than a collective attempt to figure out how to make the country better for everyone.
Vice signaling is a difficult thing to explain, when most people seem unable to even understand that things can have 2nd order effects.
The desire to blaspheme seems to me like some kind of status move. If many people feel low-status, they will be tempted to join. (The politics as usual only makes things worse, because people desire to make their outgroup feel low-status. The problem is when they succeed.)
...many of these things seem downstream of the zero-sum approach to politics and maybe life in general. I mean, if you adopt the perspective of a zero-sum life, then words like “good” and “evil” lose their original meaning. The only thing that remains is “good for ingroup / bad for outgroup” and “good for outgroup / bad for ingroup”.