Sir G,
I agree with what you are saying in this second post. Weird ideas, fads, fashions, ect can spread through a population very quickly with little regard to their underlying merit. I learned about the idea of a Meme from victor niederhoffer's book. The term was originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his book "the selfish gene." The meme concept attempts to label the phenomenon of the way ideas seem to spread through a population like parasites. Interestingly enough, the concept of the "meme" itself spreads as a meme. Otherwise, I would never have heard of it. However, I think there is a real difference between active thought (when confronted with something new) and passive following. You are probably correct that passive following is more popular. However, I think this was the distinction I was trying to make when I "disagreed" with your original post. I thought you were making your case using overly "absolute" language.
I also agree that culture, surroundings, and experiences to varying degrees work to entrap a person's mind. Last semester I took an anthropology class, and in fact that was the number one lesson I took away from it. Outside of the requirements of bare survival, it appeared that much of human knowledge, custom, ect (perhaps even most) throughout history was arbitrary nonsense. (note: this is not what the teacher's message, but my thoughts on the material)
I think perhaps this attachment to the arbitrary rules or order of a particular place or era is one of the reasons change is so difficult for people to deal with. A sense of certainty makes concrete "here and now" decisions easier, so in that sense it does serve a useful purpose. I find this to be a very interesting topic.
People may begin to view their ideas or cultural artifacts not as artificial constructs, but as laws of nature. For example, (Bringing this back to trading) at the start of a huge trend the price seems too high. Everyone said Amazon was "too high" when its move was just getting started. Experts used culturally significant valuation methods to "prove" this was the case. It is only after the fact, after many others have paid many times that original "high" price, that the old price no longer looks high. It is now considered "low."
I have had several, perhaps many experiences where I realized my cherished beliefs were ridiculously wrong. I remember the first time I felt very threatened, but now in a perverse way I look forward to such experiences
