Editing Openai/6973e373-2b8c-800d-84b7-d7001cfc6bac (section)

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* Being corrected
* Being asked for specificity
* Being asked to justify a universal claim
* Having one’s framing challenged
* Having identity/status cues threatened (“I’m smart/fair/good/open-minded”)

===== Instead of doing the harder work (premises, specifics, conceding, narrowing), the person chooses cheaper moves, such as: =====
* Tone labels: “defensive much,” “you can’t take criticism”
* Meta labels: “gish gallop,” “meandering”
* Universalizing: “obvious to anyone”
* Credential leverage: “I make a lot of money writing”
* Narrative control: framing the other as censoring, irrational, domineering
* Strawman: summarizing the other’s position in a distorted/weak form
* Leap-chains: conclusions stacked on unargued assumptions
* Disengage/exit: “block me,” “lol,” incredulity

===== - Relief from dissonance (“I don’t have to reconsider”) =====
* Preservation of self-story (“I’m competent / right / above this”)
* Social cover (“I signaled that the other is the problem”)
* Reduced effort (“I avoided premise-tracking”)
* Avoidance of “self-correcting pains” (humiliation, shame, status drop, identity wobble)

===== If the move decreases discomfort and protects narrative, it gets reinforced—even if it produces long-term costs. =====

===== Over time, this shapes a person’s effective agency: =====
* They become less able to choose the high-effort truth path under threat.
* They become more dependent on substitution moves.
* Their self-image grows more protected and less accurate.
* Their discourse becomes predictably incompatible with high-signal spaces.

This is your “all dots connect” claim in functional form.