Why is extremism always so misallocated?

To be an extremist, you need to be pretty damn irrational. I assume that the correct allocation would be something at least partially rational?

I mean... firebombing houses is probably not going to help us find the Higgs boson.

Nice! First of all firebombing - I can not put into words the stupidity. Second, if you are going to do that why don't you start with puppy mills or factory style pig/chicken farms.

Oh I know why, because these people are beyond stupid.

Humans are animals. Burning people with fire constitutes harming animals. Seeking to help animals by hurting other animals seems illogical. Oh wait... (Is this hacker news?)

firefox, tux, gnu, tomcat, leopard, mongrel, ocaml, hardy heron, etc. i guess it can be considered hacker news...

This is classic PETA (or ALF) about 7:35 in - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ijLulwUTY

I believe they were animal-welfare extremists and not animal-rights extremists, unless they were fighting for the vote.

sadpanda :( Using violence to make a point about animal rights seems a little odd...

I'm pretty sure some people just enjoy the violence. The animal rights is likely just an excuse.