[mingus88]

This is a story of a man becoming radicalized. He is prioritizing these radical beliefs above his marriage, friendships, and relationships with his children.

I will drop an observation here that many perpetrators of mass casualties were seen in retrospect to go down a similar path. Friends and family knew something was up, but nothing could be done.

My view is that there is a straight line from this guys story to a catastrophe where this guy harms himself and others. At a certain point he has lost everything that matters and will be consumed by this paranoia

[Ajedi32]

> He is prioritizing these radical beliefs above his marriage, friendships, and relationships with his children.

Was he? Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see any indication of that in the article. Unless by "prioritizing these radical beliefs" you mean he wasn't willing to just abandon his sincerely held beliefs because his family was threatening to leave him if he didn't? I actually think that's an admirable quality. You shouldn't ignore reality just because it would be convenient for you personally. (In this case he's wrong about what reality is, but that's a separate concern.)

[gosub100]

He was wagering $10k of the family's funds to back his predictions. And spending money on gold and survival supplies. Those aren't necessarily bad things, but you should definitely talk over it with your spouse to make sure they are in agreement. I don't completely disagree with his decisions, storing some food and water is common sense. It depends on the severity of his actions.

[derkster]

To you, it might be admirable. To others, it's just a constant reminder of existential threats. Kudos to you if you can handle it, but it's not anyones place to say just how much is too much to cut them off.

[Ajedi32]

I mean, people are obviously free to choose to associate with who they wish. But let's be clear: if a person decides to cut someone off merely because their beliefs are different, then they're the one "prioritizing their beliefs above their marriage, friendships, and relationships with their parents", not the other way around.

[zeroCalories]

The problem is that you're viewing this as a tragedy of untrue sincere beliefs. These beliefs are not sincere, they are a mask for an emotional desire. I do blame them for valuing their own emotions over the well-being of their family. It is a massive and shameful failure of character.

[Ajedi32]

So your position is that he placed a $10,000 bet on something he didn't actually believe in? That he's lying and doesn't really believe in those things, and is just claiming he does because he has an "emotional desire" for... something? Something that matters more to him than his family?

That's a pretty wild claim; do you have anything to substantiate it?

[zeroCalories]

If a seemingly intelligent person goes against all reason to do something stupid, they're not stupid, they're a liar if they know it or not. At this point he would rather lose his family and die than admit he was played, so he's going to keep playing his role in the conspiracy theory until he does.

[kayo_20211030]

There's no straight line. It's true that, "many perpetrators of mass casualties were seen in retrospect to go down a similar path", but it doesn't work faultlessly in reverse. Lots of people on that "path" cause no casualties at all, some of them don't even do harm, even to themselves. They're just a little bit off beam.

[swatcoder]

Per the story, the father has immersed himself into the beliefs and convictions of a widespread social movement that we're all familiar with. While his beliefs seem it has pulled him away from his everyday relationships, they've brought him in ideological alignment and community with many, many others.

Perhaps that social movement is dangerously paranoiac and may even lead to violence and conflict in society, but it's a meaningfully different thing to become part of a community that pulls you away from your prior relationships than it is to be lost in your own idiosyncratic fantasies of violence or threat as you seem to be implying. Conflating the two means conflating what their root causes are and how they might be addressed.