glorius_lasagne comments on The Proper Use of Humility - Less Wrong
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A majority of people openly disagreeing with others are doing so out of pride, not a desire to learn. The exact flavour of pride varies. Some feel that they are righteously doing their duty to defend their opinion and remain true to themselves and/or their tribe, some want to feel like they are doing a favour to humanity by enlightening others, some disagree to humiliate a person with a contradictory opinion because they dislike the person, some disagree to challenge a person's social status rather than challenging his opinion, some because they take pride in being edgy or non-conformist, some just want to flaunt their opinion and superior knowledge. The fact that people interpret open disagreement as arrogance is quite a reasonable assumption since the probability of a person openly disagreeing with them not out of pride is negligibly low, at least outside the rationalist community. (Even within the rationalist community, it is still relatively unlikely that a person disagree for an opportunity to refine their model of the universe. Even rationalists regularly fall prey to emotions such as pride.)