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Have you ever noticed that people who think like you are "rational" and "logical," while those who disagree with you are "deluded" or "naive"? It's not because you have access to objective truth. It's because you judge their opinions by your own.

When someone agrees with you, your brain says: Yes, this person has a correct understanding of the truth (which, by a lucky chance, coincides with my position). When someone disagrees, your brain says: This person is mistaken about the truth (which is still my position).

You don't evaluate their arguments on their merits. You evaluate how well they align with your beliefs. And they do exactly the same to you.

Take political views, for example. No matter which side you're on, the other side isn't just wrong for you—their delusion is dangerous. It's mind-boggling. They're destroying the country. How can they fail to see what's so obvious to you?

And here's the irony: I haven't even mentioned which country, which flags, or which parties I'm talking about. But you've already projected this onto your political landscape, haven't you? Because this pattern works everywhere. In every country, people find their political differences uniquely toxic, uniquely irritating, uniquely insurmountable. "Our politics are broken," we all say, as if we invented social polarization.

We all think our situation is unique. But the mechanism is the same everywhere: you measure someone else's political position by your own. People whose position aligns with yours are "informed." Those whose position doesn't are "victims of propaganda." And they make exactly the same measurements from their own point of reference.

Remember that car in the mirror, driving at your speed? You felt a connection because it was driving like you. It's the same with like-minded people: they seem "right" because they match your speed, your rhythm, your point of reference. You both consider yourself right. You both consider the other wrong. You both measure yourself by your standard and act as if it were universal.

But that's not true. He's just yours.