The problem with social media is that you’re only allowed to hold opinions in batches. If you believe X and Y, you must also believe Z, which is atmospherically similar to X and Y and believed by all the same people.
If you don’t do this, everyone hates you. It makes actual thinking impossible.
All of your views are expected to be formed by reference to your other views, rather than the facts on the ground. You are supposed to know what you think about every topic before you actually have any information about it - by extrapolating from other beliefs, or simply mimicking your friends.
“Well this instance is complicated,” or “this is different than the other thing,” or “the facts here just don’t add up” - none of that is allowed. If you try to approach topics that way you will literally end up a pariah.
Feb 3, 2026 13:25It’s poisonous. Just endless spiraling towards factual minimalism and ideological maximalism lest your peers eat you alive. Intellectual death.
What’s crazy about it, too, is that you don’t have to hold any actually crazy opinions to fall afoul of this dynamic. You can have a bunch of very mainstream opinions, that don’t neatly line up with what the various coalitions expect!
