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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

People like you who did not created ties to a group like that are quite better and less scary then people who have strong loyal unquestioning ties to groups - whether nationalist, traditionalist or radical Christians (some of Catholics in my country lately tie themselves to extremists).

Membership and trust in these apparently feels great. That feeling is dangerous. That trust is not build on truths being told, it is build on unquestioned authority and aggression.

Reflection from a country where such groups are on the rise and not a side players anymore.

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Strong social ties can exist without an overarching authority, or even without any sort of authoritative structure at all- I think the best thing to look at in this regard are modern subcultures (punks, hipsters, hippies, goths, burners, etc) particularly as they exist in decently-sized cities. A bunch of like-minded and like-lifestyled people with an excuse to get together; that’s at least 90% of what the old conservative/religious structures offered.

Everyone is the same amount of religious in my experience. The people who join an established religion gain the quality of being predictable.

I really don't see that one.

There are people willing to drink poison for their cult - I don't see that level of religious fervour from the vast majority of people.

People who join an established religion also vary wildly. Gangsters and pedophiles sit next to soccer mums and librarians at church services.

I don't see the predictability or religious-(ity) being at all normalised.

And notional atheists crusade for political positions with equal fervour. I think what he meant is that there's a probability distribution of religiosity among the populace, and the curves aren't too different within and without churches.

The religion as in believe in supernatural is not the issue that much. Who they cooperate with and support is the issue I have - and of course support is related to who have similar/compatible ideologies in some sense.

Indeed. A lot of the modern internet "beefs" remind me of football "ultras"; the sport is really a pretext for the punchup, or at least the singing of death threats at each other.

I've experienced plenty of that dangerous unquestioning extremist fervor from progressive/LGBT circles too.

It's a little concerning in cultural conditioning is that most people don't consider left extremist groups in that. They can get dangerous pretty quickly. (Other than the usual just shitty to people outside the groups)

Right now I am talking about aligning oneself with party that openly threaten violence and celebrates it and openly talks about abusing power if they win (as if that would be cool thing). And whose leadership is very friendly with dudes who have swastica tatoos. And which have very similar ideological arguments.

"Unquestioning fervor" is not there yet.

They are scary, because their appeal and promis is "I am gon na be tough and violent and anything else is weakness".

> party that openly threaten violence and celebrates it and openly talks about abusing power if they win (as if that would be cool thing)

I read this entire sentence and still wasn't sure which side you were referring to because this applies equally to "the left" in my experience.

Yeah it's possible that fearful people have intentionally made us lonely and isolated so they can feel safer.

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