If you're a true skeptic, you'll belong nowhere.

If you really are a skeptic, not just someone who likes the label, then you're not left-wing, you're not right-wing, and you're definitely not “moderate", you're politically homeless. You don’t fit anywhere, and both sides misunderstand you.

Why? Because true skepticism isn’t compatible with tribalism. And humans are hardwired for tribalism. For millions of years as hunter gatherers, if you didn’t belong to a tribe, you died. It was that simple. So the “us vs them” instinct is baked into our DNA. Nationalism, religion, caste, race, gender identity, political affiliation, even your favorite sports team, it’s all just repackaged tribalism. Most people need to belong to something. Most people need a side.

And that’s the problem.. tribalism rewards loyalty, not truth. It encourages cherry-picking data/evidence that confirms your group's beliefs, while ignoring or attacking anything that challenges them. It values emotional comfort over intellectual honesty. So even many who claim to be skeptics usually aren’t. They question selectively. They’ll mock pseudoscience in religion, but blindly accept it in other domains. Most self-proclaimed skeptics are just selective contrarians.

If you're truly skeptical, if you consistently apply critical thinking, logical reasoning, rational analysis, and evidence-based inquiry across all domains equally, then sooner or later you'll hit a painful realization.. almost everything you've been told is either half true, oversimplified, or flat out wrong. And nobody wants to hear that. Not the left. Not the right. Not the “centrists”. Not anyone.

Real skepticism isn’t a community. It’s not a movement or a team. It’s a mindset, and one that alienates you from every tribe, because you refuse to suspend disbelief just to belong.

So if you feel misunderstood and disliked by people across the ideological spectrum, good. That might mean you’re doing it right. (Might is the keyword, because being disliked doesn’t automatically make you right. You could just be wrong and annoying. It goes both ways.)