Escaping Extremism: Slap Fighting Our Way to a More Civil Society

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The forces of media, technology, and even the wiring of our own brains seem aligned to draw people toward extremism. But never fear: Asher, Jason, and Rob unpack why we're so susceptible to wackadoodle viewpoints and offer ways to tamp down extremist thinking and behavior in ourselves, our communities, and across society. Along the way, they tour the worlds of extreme sports, extreme politics, and extreme yogurt. They even question their own decidedly non-mainstream views on the environment and the economy.

Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.

Sources/Links/Notes:

• Kevin Roose’s article in the New York Times “A QAnon ‘Digital Soldier’ Marches On, Undeterred by Theory’s Unraveling”Definition of extremism from the Anti-Defamation League
• Concepts of “malignant bonding” and “scarcity mind” in the article “Widening the ‘We’” by Colin Greer and Eric Laursen
• Zeynep Tufecki’s 2018 article in the New York Times “YouTube, the Great Radicalizer”
• Kari Paul’s 2021 article in the Guardian “‘It let white supremacists organize’: the toxic legacy of Facebook’s Groups”
• Peter D. Kvam et al., “Rational inference strategies and the genesis of polarization and extremism,” Nature, May 5, 2022.
• Statistics on rising levels of hate crime in the United States
• Statistics on domestic terrorism in the United States
• Statistics on antisemitism around the world
• Crazy Town episode 78, which includes the six questions Megan Phelps-Roper developed to challenge her entrenched beliefs.
• Rapoport’s Rules for constructive criticism
• Post Carbon Institute’s Deep Dive on Building Emotional Resilience
• Diane Benscoter’s nonprofit, Antidote.ngo, which runs recovery groups for people caught up in disinformation.
• Thought reform consultation
• Crazy Town episode 89 on escaping individualism, in which we discussed mutual aid networks
• Lawsuit to allow social media users to control their algorithms
• Ranked choice voting

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