Fred Foldvary wrote:
It seems you posit that people who reason will be inflexible, and those
who don't will be flexible and go with the crowd, which won't happen to
be where reason would lead. But under this theory, how do you explain that
the people on the *other* side from you of the crowd are also inflexible?
The concept of anchoring may explain such inflexibility An idea which is
not grounded in fact but sounds plausible can easily get anchored. But I
don't see why this would be more prevalent among those we think of as
extreme. The difference seems to be that for meainstream ideas ...
anchoring does not seem to be inflexible ... while for non-mainstream views
... their refusal to budge is more apparant and shocking. ... the movement
would not seem like much when viewed from the center.
I don't think you're taking the two data sources cited seriously. The
observe a correlation between extremism and apparently objective measures of
inflexibility. So either you have to say the data doesn't measure what it
seems, or accept the data and try to explain it.
Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
