I've noticed a kind of tribal individualist that's common online. They move in mobs, make nearly identical objections, claim not be a group or believe in groups, and are extremely hostile to the identities of others. They've also been REALLY BAD for online scientific discourse.
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Since many individualists claim not to be part of groups, they often substitute group identity with pledges of allegiance to ideas. They might say "I believe in logic and reason". They will say this even when they've long since abandoned logic and reason.
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The claim of allegiance to the ideas becomes a way of identifying with the group rather than a factual statement about their personal interests. At some point, they no longer care if the claim is true. It's just a way of signaling to their fellow compatriots what side they're on.
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Many individualists don't see countries as collections of people. They instead see countries as persons like some see corporations as persons. They'll say things like "Why aren't you grateful to America?", implying America is a person that can be hurt by a lack of gratitude.
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These individualists, who claim not to believe in groups, have a brilliant trick. They repackage insults to their group identity as insults to certain ideas, which they treat like persons. They will call you out for attacking Logic, Reason, Civilization, etc and treat these...
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offenses like offenses against their dear mothers. This allows them to have a strong group identity without having a strong group identity.
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All of this is bad for scientific discourse because it means we have a lot of people claiming to be fans of the hallmarks of science such as logic, reason, math, experiments etc who aren't really fans. They use science as a cudgel to beat back their perceived enemies.
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Many individualists are nothing more than verbal brawlers. They don't produce any science. They hurt people in science's name. They confuse people about what science is. They attack actual scientists. They worsen online scientific discourse. In short, they are huge problem.
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End of conversation
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A lot of interesting ideas in this thread. But be g twitter, it's hard (for me anyway) to know how much of this is prevalent in a way that distinguishes it from anecdotal collections. It's also hard to know how to distinguish from the selection bias inherent in social media.
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Am I allowed to be both very individualist as well as steeped in understanding environmental and social causes, with a consequent commitment to public solutions?
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