I agree with many points.

Even on Hacker News, when you see debates like 'X technology is good' or 'X technology is bad,' most of it seems to be about identity. And that identity often originates from the community they belong to.

The first identity usually starts with a community or the person who created it. Once the community forms, people under it often forget the original reasons and just accept it as their identity.

This is especially true for technology related issues, because the market share of a technology is directly tied to one's career, which makes it even more prone to becoming an identity issue.

I also do some 'thinking' in certain areas, but most of the time I don't. As my field gets deeper, it becomes harder to allocate cognitive resources to other areas. So in general, most people follow the crowd's opinion, but only maintain deep, thoughtful thinking, including 'taste,' in a few specific technical domains.