I completely and utterly disagree with this quote and nothing you can say can make me change my mind.

I am hungry for pizza!

gameID=61168
30 pts WTA Anon Gunboat

one of my favorite sites. the study of cognitive biases is one of the more under-appreciated scientific endeavors.

But there's an article!

maybe it's taken from the AP!!!

nice try lenpw, but you are putting a sugar-coating on a steaming pile of doo-doo. This forums ills are far greater than simple cognitive bias. We have genuine mental illness here in abundance. And there's no escaping! ;)
(unless you move to some other horrible-interface diplomacy site)

I'll take your silence as complete agreement.

interesting, I have to admit alot of the political debates have reafirmed my political views (even though not one person agrees with me)
other arguments have made me rethink some of my views.

"We have genuine mental illness here in abundance."
And your one of the reasons why

"even though not one person agrees with me" - you said it.

I love this blog! It makes me so happy to find someone else that reads it. Can't read this now, but I will when I get a chance.

well written, I'll start reading more articles from there...

I just found this site today but it's already one of my favourites!

It seems strange knowing this very article is going to reinforce somebody's belief that psychology is a load of crap.

"Hearing a solid argument against your opinions will only make them stronger."
"That's complete and utter bullshit! Honestly, how could people believe such rubbish?! Stupid bloody psychologist talking out of his ass!"

This explains why everyone but me is so consistently wrong! I knew there had to be some reason.

That's obviously a joke but it's also a point. When confronted with articles like this a lot of people tend to think of themselves as immune to this kind of cognitive bias. And once you point that out to them, they claim that they realize it applies to them too, and it's just everyone else who thinks they're immune to cognitive bias.
It's just a series of nesting Russian dolls of arrogance. The human mind is wonderful like that.

well some of do attempt to build alternative views into our own when they make sense.

I know at least one webdipper who told me he'd never looked at things my way before... now the fact that i can stay on the same wavelength as 1 of 1640 (active) players might be pretty cool.

I think however we have some other advantages here, like when austria tells me that england is guaranteeing to stab me, i might disbelieve him at first, but once the stab has happened it will take a lot of rationalizing away reality to convince me my original position was correct.

I think it is easier to come to your own conclusions if you haven't made up your mind yet. And an interesting conversation can bring up ideas which you haven't yet thought of.

If you already know a position and choose to think it is false, then hearing it re-iterated isn't going to change much. However if it can be turned into a new piece of information which we haven't seen before then perhaps it will allow us a brief chance to integrate the view point - before we are then dedicated to this new position...

How and ever, i don't think, in all my time ranting on the forums, that i have ever taken what someone else has said as more valid than my original opinion. With perhaps one exception...