I've been very interested in this essay and the thread on defiance as a survival mechanism.

I've reached an "all code is data moment" though on the 'ideology' thing. If we dedicate ourselves to task then in order to do a good job of it we often need to buy into it with identity. For cleaning the dishes we wouldn't, but for designing something new we definitely do. There are controversial value judgements all over the place, and you often have to build on decision mechanisms that are a hell of a lot more vague than scientific conclusions when you do it. Hence, you are invested an ideology, both in terms of approach and belief.

Two things get you into real trouble. One is to stake a lot on something tenuous. If you have a design pattern idea that is very tenous, and then invest in building a system on top of it, you're probably in trouble. Been there, and i got prickly at suggestions that my base was not all that solid.

The other problem is when you have a belief system that is getting driven from somewhere else. Politics is the nasty one because you're forced to subscribe and it's about the group. Though I personally believe that strict property law is sacred, that most taxation is stealing and that public education is a poor model, the only options on offer are those that accept that and so I have to pick one. What's worse still is that politics is a zero sum game. When your solution wins, my bad compromise loses. It hurts a lot more if you openly share your faith that your chosen pick is a good one.

The political systems that are most notorious for hijacking casual conversations are those that are based on the idea that there is a fixed amount of wealth in society, because the stakes are a lot higher for people in that perspective.

Politics can be made worse by some vote electoral decision systems. One bad design is to base it on a winner takes all rule with no preferences. This can be made worse still with a gerrymander electorate. But - at least that ensures you get catch-all parties. Worse still is to give everyone a piece of the pie like the Israeli or old Italian system. In those systems every lobby group has its own political presence, there's less reason to govern for the all rather than your group, and this sets the stage for coruption and a perpetually unstable executive. Vague idea: a political system with a fixed 'kernel' but an arbitrary number of representatives who would be self-funded by bits of the community.

Religion is less of a problem than politics. You can have a conversation with someone about the ancestry of your different religions and respect their position openly and inside even if you do spare a moment later to have a private chuckle at the prospect of their eternity in the fiery pit. Hey - it's their funeral. Some cultures try to turn religion into politics: old testament stories that say that God punished a town because its people were bad, or that certain land must be reclaimed for the one true faith, or network marketing rules.

The problems are far less in the geek world and they decline as time goes on and tools get better making the compromises less. I suspect that normal people got more upset about mac-windows ten years ago than now, and that they get more upset now than than hackers, because they're victims of the compromises whereas experienced developers don't give a damn what platform they're on so long as they can get a shell and a compiler.

Although... everyone needs libraries...

Something that would be useful: tips on forming a world view with minimal reliance on external belief.