- 02 Dec, 2025 *
“Why?” “Why?” “Why?”
If you’ve been around children at any point, you’ve probably heard of or experienced the never-ending “why” question.
“Why does the sun follow us?” “Because the earth revolves around it?” “Why?” “Gravity holds it in place” “Why?” “Because the sun is so huge that planets are bound to orbit it” “Why?” “Because large objects in space tend to have greater gravitational pull” “Why?”
You get the point.
My parents would eventually say “Why do you ask so many questions?” to my absolute befuddlement. My wife’s parents would respond with “Well what do you think?”. While it’s funny to watch a child visually short circuit, I do think my in-laws approach is the best for growing brains, and even developed ones.
Now, I’m not writing this to give parentin…
- 02 Dec, 2025 *
“Why?” “Why?” “Why?”
If you’ve been around children at any point, you’ve probably heard of or experienced the never-ending “why” question.
“Why does the sun follow us?” “Because the earth revolves around it?” “Why?” “Gravity holds it in place” “Why?” “Because the sun is so huge that planets are bound to orbit it” “Why?” “Because large objects in space tend to have greater gravitational pull” “Why?”
You get the point.
My parents would eventually say “Why do you ask so many questions?” to my absolute befuddlement. My wife’s parents would respond with “Well what do you think?”. While it’s funny to watch a child visually short circuit, I do think my in-laws approach is the best for growing brains, and even developed ones.
Now, I’m not writing this to give parenting advice, but rather a useful framework for seeking truth.
The aim? Ask “why?” like you’re a child again. Basically the Socratic method except you’re asking yourself the unrelenting questions rather than someone else, though that can be helpful too.
This framework of ruthless questioning is ultimately what ripped me out of the alt-right pipeline in my late-teens. It’s also the reason I tackled sophisms passed on by red scare propaganda.
If you have questions, answer them. Then ask questions about those answers, then answer them. So on until either your logic breaks down or you reverse course. It’s also okay to revisit topics or find a “good enough” point.
Let’s use an example. Say you think blue and pink are “boys” and “girls” colors respectively.
“Blue is for boys, pink is for girls”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what helps distinguish boys and girls, and pink is a girly color”
“Okay, but does that actually make it a “boy”/“girl” color? Seems kinda arbitrary doesn’t it? What makes pink a girly color?“
“Because it’s kinda feminine, and it’s on like all the girls toys”
“How does one assign a color as masculine or feminine outside of ‘it just feels like it?’ Is there really any way to objectively state XYZ is masculine or feminine. Heels used to be worn by men, now we don’t, so obviously it’s not a science.”
“[...]”
scene
I could go on and on with this, but I don’t really think I’ve ever held this opinion of “blue is for boys pink is for girls”, so it’s kinda hard to argue from a position I don’t hold. I hope you get the picture at least.
Now of course, this is heavily dependent on asking questions in good faith. Not just straw-manning yourself. It also requires self-awareness to identify if you’re falling into a logical fallacy. You also have to know your limits, you can’t know everything. It’s also important to understand that you don’t have to accept every thought. To quote Aristotle:
It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it.
When I was going down the alt-right pipeline, I started playing with the pro-life argument that I was seeing online. I asked myself the same questions that I saw floating around online and attacked it. Biblical reasoning was lost on me because I’m an atheist; which even then the verses used to defend pro-life contradict a lot of pro-life arguments uttered in the same breath. Eventually after enough time playing with the thought for a couple of weeks I rejected it as a whole.
I also encourage you to do this with other people, it may get annoying though so your mileage may vary.
You can always dig deeper as well. Even if you’ve found a stopping point, or an end to your chain of reasoning, you can always go deeper. The mark of a philosopher is hitting the bedrock of their questions and then going deeper.
You can also look up answers or questions to ask yourself online, try to see what questions people are actually asking or reasoning they are actually giving. This will come in handy if/when you find yourself in a spat of verbal sparring. It’s better to come at least somewhat equipped. If the Socratic Method is like rhetorical sparring, then asking yourself the “why?” questions is like rhetorical shadowboxing.
I would recommend writing down these philosophical shadowboxing sessions, it will be handy to keep tabs on what questions you’ve asked, what you’ve answered, and what to ask based off those answers.
Overall, you owe it to yourself to understand the world around you. You owe it to yourself to not just believe at face value whatever you see, you can keep space for it in your head, but don’t accept it unless you have a reasonable degree of certainty to do so. So, ask yourself “why?”.
Pirate is wearing all-black converse, black Linkin Park tee, baggy light-blue Levi 501s. Pirate is feeling content. Pirate is listening to early 2010s nostalgia jams. Pirate is playing Halo 2 modded map packs with friends.
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