I really kind of want to like this post, but I don't, because while it's accurate, I have a lot of sympathy for these people.
A lot of people to whom these "intellectuals" appeal to are genuinely curious about understanding the world and usually at least of medium intelligence. The vast majority of them are pretty young; typically they are young men because the "intellectual dark web" is also a boys club where cool daddy figures or big brothers tell you you're
cool and
smart because you believe in them, and
believing in them makes you more of a man, and all them feminists who make you uncomfortable are just dumb-dumbs you can laugh at.
I believe it's mostly just a question of having the wrong heroes at the wrong time. I think most of us remember to some extent what it was like when you were young and you were really impressed by someone for the first time. Typically it's some artist, a writer or a musician maybe, you're just completely at awe at their "deep ideas" or what ever. Then you eventually run into other thinkers who you also like, but who's thoughts don't form any kind of coherent whole with the ideas you previously latched on to. You start to grasp relativism and perspectives and the fact that most people are both right and wrong, and that world can't be divided into people who are right and the ones that are wrong. Or you just realizes what dumb s*** you believed in before. I think that's happened to a lot of us
But if the thing you latch on to is a constantly self-referencing and self-reinforcing intellectual jerk-circle with multiple similar voices who make a very convincing act of being smarter and just always more right than the people outside the circle, and who also
constantly ridicule everyone who thinks differently, it can lead to some pretty toxic development.
It's really a lot like belonging to a cult. They will tell you things you want to hear and build you up by telling you you're so smart and so much more right about everything than anyone because you believe what the cool daddy says, but just like a cult they will instantly turn on anyone who starts asking the wrong questions.
Spend enough time in that echo chamber and "being right", "being smart" and "believing in the cool daddy" become one, and they become a part of your identity. Then when you run into a situation where you realize you might be wrong about something important, it threatens your whole identity. This is why these people become so verbally aggressive so quickly.
It's a kind of intellectual essentialism really. Being right = being the right kind of person = believing the cool daddy.
It's why I now try to give some slack to these people. They lash out because they've already realized they
might be wrong. Pressuring them to admit it is pointless, it's too scary for them. The smart ones will eventually re-evaluate their positions in the safety of their own heads, and I can't force the other ones to change their minds no matter what I say.