On the contrary, if you're working with people that dense, it's very unlikely that you'll make any progress on technical grounds. It's hard even among intellige

On the contrary, if you're working with people that dense, it's very unlikely that you'll make any progress on technical grounds. It's hard even among intelligent people. The reality is that most people do not make value judgments based on objective criteria of any kind. This is true even among technical people, who rapidly build religious precepts around their nearly-arbitrarily-chosen pet technologies and then discard anyone who doesn't present with the tokens and signs of their adopted technical religion, regardless of that person's true technical ability. People make judgments based on the amount of personal trust and goodwill they have toward the person making the argument. That's the natural status. With a lot of exercise, people can partially limit the effects of this impulse, but very few train at this in any significant way. The moral of the story is that the way to win arguments is to be well-liked. It's a popularity contest. If you want people to let you do what you want, you have to make them like you. The objective merits of whatever you're arguing about are practically irrelevant.