The more important question isn't "are you correct," it's "does it matter to be correct right now?"

Maybe you do actually know better than everyone else, but why do you have to prove it to others? You can just quietly make your argument and shut up. It's their loss, and people may remember that you were right.

Maybe it's about an important decision at work, but if your correctness pisses everyone off, no one is going to listen to you again. You've won the battle but lost the war.

People shouldn't be that way, but they are.

Sometimes it's not about being the "free-thinker," but just fitting in. If you're in a setting where there can be 'overwhelming dissent,' I would say it's prudent to pause and consider what your goal is with pushing a certain idea. It's almost certainly not going to get the consideration it deserves to be accepted if a mass of people have a negative knee-jerk reaction to hearing it.

> facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker

You just better be right. If you're wrong then no one will ask for your input ever again.

Isn't this basically exactly the behavior described?

> Call me anti-social if you want, but facing overwhelming dissent may indicate you're the lone free-thinker in an echo chamber. Key word is : may. If you're facing overwhelming dissent, you should probably retreat and re-evaluate your position. Maybe you're right, but maybe you're just missing something the other's see.

> Being that one guy who's always prodding the hivemind with a pokey stick has value in my opinion (though you will end up getting stung on occasion).

When done deliberately, it's called the "tenth man rule": when 9 people agree, the 10th man is obligated to figure out a way to disagree. I learned about it from this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777175 (pretty great comment, IMHO).