Here are two beliefs that are sort of haunting me right now:

1. Folk who try to push people to uphold principles (whether established ones or novel ones), are kinda an important bedrock of civilization.
2. Also, those people are really annoying and often, like, a little bit crazy

And these both feel fairly important.

I’ve learned a lot from people who have some kind of hobbyhorse about how society is treating something as okay/fine, when it's not okay/fine. When they first started complaining about it, I’d be like “why is X such a big deal to you?”. Then a few years later I’ve thought about it more and I’m like “okay, yep, yes X is a big deal”.

Some examples of X, including noticing that…

• people are casually saying they will do stuff, and then not doing it.
• someone makes a joke about doing something that's kinda immoral, and everyone laughs, and no one seems to quite be registering “but that was kinda immoral.”
• people in a social group are systematically not saying certain things (say, for political reasons), and this is creating weird blind spots for newcomers to the community and maybe old-timers too.
• someone (or a group) has [...]

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First published:
April 13th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xG9Y2Mct7uZyt98yb/annoyingly-principled-people-and-what-befalls-them

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.