I was sliding down the alt-right rabbit hole, mostly out of loneliness. Algorithms and echo chambers love loneliness.

I think there’s a really important threshold, and I’m ashamed to say I reached it, where you know it’s propaganda. Where you stop falling down the rabbit hole and start walking down it of your own accord.

The first propaganda, you believe. Some people commit crimes, or hate you, or are dangerous. Capitalism is freedom. The stuff an uncurious and uncareful person can believe all of and still be internally consistent, if wrong.

Then there’s the propaganda that requires you to acknowledge the lies you believed earlier were lies. No, it isn’t Hispanic people that commit crimes - it’s Jewish people! Capitalism isn’t freedom - libertarianism, or state capitalism, or whatever buzzword for company towns is in vogue.

And you know the stuff you believed before isn’t true. But you still say it in polite company, you mask and start to pretend you aren’t someone who believes what you do. You know it’s unacceptable.

That’s what got me out. Realizing that I was in a dark cycle of self-isolation and internet addiction, and trying to be deliberately social and empathetic and present. Therapy helps, but you’ve gotta want it.

Not OP, but I know why carbon hurts (and why it’s useful!):

Carbon is stiffer than steel. That does a lot of stuff, but two things primarily - one good, one bad.

Good: the force you put into the pedals bends a steel frame more than it does a carbon frame. Every bit of force used to bend the frame is force that doesn’t get used to push you forwards, so a stiff carbon frame is a lot faster than a bendy steel one.

Bad: the force from the road works the same way as the force from your pedals: it also gets reduced with a bendier frame, and a stiff frame will take every bump and crack in the tarmac and put that force right into your taint.