DRAFT

We need to learn how to talk to radicalized people. Not because they deserve it, but because it’s beneficial for us, long-term.

How do you know if someone close to you has been radicalized?

There’s a lot of talk of social media algorithms reducing trust and increasing radicalization. What’s the definition of being radicalized?

Cult? Anti-rationalism? Anti-science, anti-argumentation. How does commitment to rationality look like? City culture vs conservative culture. Blind trust - only one speaks the truth, everyone else lies. Idealization of a leader. Black-and-white thinking. Low social trust, in institutions. Motivated? Not uncritical, rather hyper-critical in a unbalanced way, while trusting others without question. Same as extremism? Where the goal motivates any means. No regard to human rights?

pressure towards uniformity, rejection of opinion deviates, in-group favoritism, out-group derogation, endorsement of autocratic leadership [8] Violence against outgroup member.

Deradicalisation as a decentralized process.

Bad-faith, good-faith.

Why is radicalization bad? A functional and healthy democracy requires people respecting the rules, and a shared reality.

Who is vulnerable for disinformation, and why?

Breakdown of the social contract, what’s expected and what’s delivered.

LEAP

  • Listen without an agenda
  • Empathize with any concern they have
  • Ask open questions with honest curiosity
  • Use the Socratic method when possible

Deep concern and worry about different issues.

Socratic dialogue. Ask open questions in good faith.

Less black-and-white.

First reduce or deactivate safety mode [7], then talk.

Ther person feels profoundly unsafe. The world is threatening, people have bad intentions, harm seems imminent. […] worsened by a deep-seated doubt about being able to stop the bad thing from happening. [7, p 124]

Have to first show empathy to reach a problem-solving state-of-mind [6].

The need for closure is defined as the desire for a quick and firm answer to a question and the aversion toward ambiguity or uncertainty[8] a heightened need for closure gives rise to a syndrome of “group centrism”

Brainwashed - how to know? They call you brainwahsed, and you call them brainwahsed. Are we both brainwashed, because of a never-ending social feedback loop to confirm are biases? Who’s willing to investigate those biases, though, and who isn’t?

Sources

[1] https://sa1s3.patientpop.com/assets/docs/85479.pdf - LEAP

[2] I’m not sick, I don’t need help, Xavier Amador

[3] Behave, Sapolsky

[4] Prisoners of Hate, Aaron Beck

[5] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4314927/ - Black & white thinking: A cognitive distortion

[6] CBT for cancer

[7] Recovery-oriented therapy for serious mental illness.

[8] Extremism and the psychology of uncertainty