If you change 'extremist' to 'unconventional', then we're in full agreement. Extreme positions for an independent thinker make sense if you're in your 20s or 3

If you change 'extremist' to 'unconventional', then we're in full agreement. Extreme positions for an independent thinker make sense if you're in your 20s or 30s because you form ideas in contrast to status quo, often by swinging in the opposite direction. By the time you've had a decade or two to test your ideas in the real world, the extremism fades away into either 'things are far more complex than I thought' or 'I'd need to change many minds to make this work and I see no clear path to get there' - which are not extreme positions as far as I can tell.