I find it quite odd how intelligent folks, with access to objective facts, still end up on opposing sides of an issue. Not just small issues, and not a small sample size as well. Big, important issues like elections and wars, that have millions of people on both sides. Why does this happen?

One working theory I believe in that explains this, is that your answer depends on your own internal bias. And often, the highest abstraction of this internal bias is whether you’re an idealist or a realist. Someone who requires for perfection conditions to be met before any progress can be measured or someone who is happy to take the current constraints as is and work towards a quantum of progress.

I feel young people start out on the idealist side and start sliding towards the realist side of the spectrum as they age, but this isn’t universally the case, and people often fall on different areas of the spectrum for distinct issues. I’ll leave it up as an exercise for the reader to evaluate their own internal bias.

If you agree with this hypothesis, then what might help is being mindful of what your internal bias is before making any important decision, and asking yourself whether you need to consciously correct for it before locking in your answer.