At every crossroads you need to make a decision on which way to go. To listen to you a person would never choose left or right because he's spending too much time listening to the pro and con arguements in the off chance someone might say something new.

again, that's not really a correct analogy, and bears little resemblance to real-world discussions - it's like you thought to yourself, "what's the best way to make open-mindedness look like weakness?" in the real world of thought and actions, to use your erroneous analogy, one needn't choose at every crossroads - one can make their own way, and those that don't choose to follow the "set paths" are those that are celebrated as pioneers and trailblazers (the KLF's early use of sampling, for example: they were pioneers in that sense, and since they even showed people how it was done they were trailblazers as well) BTW, I don't know if this is what you intended, but your analogy is basically a definition of conservatism