I wrote:
>To elaborate, people want political issues which are closely aligned
>with aspects of their own values that they want to signal to others,
>and which do not overly threaten how things actually get done....
>Your desire to argue is also a social signal
Steve Witham responded:
>Right. But the social signal may be mainly about desire to argue! ...
>What I'm saying is that there are other purposes for non-practical
>conversation besides value and belief advertisement.
I was looking for explanations which could plausibly be given
evolutionary foundations. I don't see the evolutionary function of
just wanting to argue for argument's sake.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/