I’ve been doing these practices consistently now for about 11 years. Even after all that time, I’m not at all free of emotional attachments; I’m working through some very deep career-related ones right now. But that’s by the by.
One of the things you start to learn when you spend enough time doing this work is that people’s emotional attachments are way more powerful than people’s ability to reason and see logic.
One you see it, you can’t unsee it. I now notice it all the time, in journalism, on Twitter, on podcasts, here on HN, and anywhere contentious topics are being discussed, people who are regarded as being as “rational” and “scientific” in their worldview will routinely argue positions that are logically absurd but they won’t be able to see it, due to their emotional attachment to the conclusion. And often their interviewer or debating parter – even if they’re somewhat in opposition – won’t notice and call them out on it because they have the same attachment to the position.
I’ve come to believe that science and logic really doesn’t hold much sway in society at all; we have positions/conclusions that are largely predetermined via people’s egos and emotional attachments, then scientific data is cherry-picked to form a "rationalisation" that feels just valid enough to pass under people's radar.