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It's even worse (at least with emotional political opinions); when confronted with adversarial data we tend to become more entrenched in our positions.



That's the fight or flight response. We view intellectual questioning of positions we hold as an attack on our person. Our rationality goes out the window, our aggression ramps up, and it becomes impossible to back down. It's the main causative agent for flame wars.


pg wrote about that as well: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html




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