That was the literal dumbest shit I've ever read in regards to your first paragraph. I don't think any moderate or centrist describes their political leanings as "smack dab in the middle between X and Y". I for one certainly don't. But I'm centrist in that I hold viewpoints along the spectrum to both sides some for sure in the extreme ends on some matters, like for instance criminal justice.

Second paragraph you believe that I'm talking in general terms. I'm not dismissing Communism (and whatever we'd define as the opposite extreme) as extreme, I'm saying inside the spectrum of people considering themselves communists there are extreme opinions such as the USSR was a utopia. Or that Mao Zedong was a great leader. Non extreme takes there would be "The USSR did many things right in combatting inequality but ultimately fell short, it however was one of the best attempts we've seen so far, maybe we should improve upon that formula instead of the ones currently leading to year over year worse inequality". For Mao Zedong you could highlight his impressive skill in unifying such a vast country as China and remodel the national identity to one of national Pride without the underpinnings of conquest and domination which has always seemed to follow a strong national identity before.

As for climate scientists the extreme take / opinion I often see is that the world is overpopulated and we need a drastic reduction, which is hardly what climate scientists propose but people read in all the time. That and eco terrorism.

Further we don't have a perfect theory of civilization in terms of how to optimally structure society to maximize life quality for everyone. And even if we did there is no guarantee we could get literally everybody onboard. This is where politics come in and surprise surprise but there is no perfect solution to be had. Only the one we can agree on collectively or the one we can force through by virtue of the power we hold. And any agreement in a group larger than one is going to be a compromise and we need to be much better at trying to reach those. And not entrench ourselves in positions from which we cannot move without conflict of identity or morals. I.e. we can't tie our political positions so tightly with neither identity nor morals such that we cannot reach a compromise to move further towards our desired state, if not directly towards it but diagonally.