Well, the “rationality” of the piece is rather dubious. For example consider your description of the “backfire effect”:
For instance, Mitt Romney condemned Trump as a “phony” and “fraud” shortly before the March 15 primaries. This type of attack only strengthens the emotional desire to vote for Trump among anti-establishment voters by triggering a thinking error called the backfire effect — a tendency for our beliefs to grow stronger when they are challenged by contradictory evidence.
Except Romney wasn’t presenting evidence, he was making an assertion. And in a lot of circumstances it is perfectly rational to update away from assertions.
More generally, in a lot of cases you describe acting on fear as irrational even though the fear in question is perfectly rational.
Well, the “rationality” of the piece is rather dubious. For example consider your description of the “backfire effect”:
Except Romney wasn’t presenting evidence, he was making an assertion. And in a lot of circumstances it is perfectly rational to update away from assertions.
More generally, in a lot of cases you describe acting on fear as irrational even though the fear in question is perfectly rational.
Original thread here.