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Wow, another excellent topic choice. This is an area to which my "differently-opinionated" friends and I give lip service, but it is fascinating to read some underlying study. Will help in providing some substance to the contemplation of how to further consider this all. Once again, thanks from your avid (but sadly, too small) fan club.

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Agree w Dr. K above - great topic to explore. I think Anthony Pratkanis' 1995 article "How to Sell a Pseudoscience" dovetails really well with this. https://tinyurl.com/mw7pcwep

I like this, too: “Our skills were honed for taking sides, persuading others in debate, not necessarily getting things right.”

I look at human tendencies as products of evolution.

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Another reader sent me this link, which is the short version of Nazi Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political, in which he writes that the political is the distinction between friend and enemy and that there is no politics without an enemy, a tragic worldview that's all too recognizable in social media today: https://americanmanifestobook.blogspot.com/2021/09/carl-schmitts-concept-of-political.html

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Thanks. Hadn't seen that.

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