Yes, I have, and what I see is a lot of people acting stupider than they really are to fit in with a society that values conformity, not insightfulness or introspectiveness
I’m mostly overhearing people talking to their friends, but yes, I gather it’s much more common to chat with strangers in America than in the UK. If I’m traveling alone, for instance, and have a lengthy airport delay, I often chat with a stranger to pass the time.
Prior to the pandemic, I was commuting daily on public transit (metro). It’s no different than the UK. People overwhelmingly mind their own business and avoid chatting up fellow commuters. Even when a particular commuter is being particularly loud and obnoxious due to lack of headphones, people will tend to say nothing rather than remind them to be courteous.
We prefer you didn’t. 
I’ve heard the life history of perfect strangers. I’m pretty sure they weren’t secretly trying to get rid of me.
People sometimes say weird things to strangers. I once had a cab driver tell me about the visions she’d had of the virgin Mary, and how that had affected her life. I once had a cabdriver try to talk me into going into business of some sort with a friend of his (I forget the details.) People like to share. Not all people, but a large subset of people.
Like insulting a fat person for being greedy? But IME conservatives are mainly insulted based on their personal beliefs. It’s little different to insulting someone based on their religion. And Trump supporters are often insulted as being stupid, uneducated, lower class, and provincial (as well as being automatically assumed to be bigots, of course).
My personal travel nightmare.
On the contrary. They’ll talk the ears off anybody too polite to walk away, or unwilling to leap out the emergency door exit and bring the entire flight down with them.
See, I’d rather listen to them than to the TV blaring in the background.
This is the quote that started our exchange.
I wasn’t saying that this thread was about the PIt when I said I was going back to the OP. I just meant that I was going back to the OP to talk about conservatives. Since the topic was about insults, which can only happen in the Pit on this board, and you were talking about the Pit in your quote, I thought it was fair to link the Pit back into your last comment about having people apologize for taking offense.
If you’re talking about insults in general, they’re not allowed anywhere else on this board, so you couldn’t think less of anyone here for them. If you think less of people in general for insults, then it must be interesting to post in the Pit.
I don’t even know what you mean by this.
Society functions largely due to “conformity”. And the thin veneer of civility.
Insight and introspection is largely a solitary or almost solitary activity. Often achieved in therapy.
First, I think I’ve been clear that some insults are different from others, and some affect my opinion of you more than others do. If you quote a plainly racist post and say, “this poster is racist, look at what they just said”, I might tell you you can’t say that in IMHO, but I’m not going to think you are a rotten person for having done so.
Second, just because it’s against the rules to insult posters outside of the pit doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. As a mod, I get to see a LOT of such cases, as they are often reported.
Third, despite what folks keep saying, most of the pit isn’t about insulting other posters.
Funny you should say that…
You haven’t seen kids or even adults in college who purposefully do worse academically or avoid learning things because doing well or being too educated is looked down on? There are any number of reasons why people look down on education: women who think men aren’t attracted to girls who are “too smart”; minorities who think doing well in school is “acting white”; men who think “only needs care about that stuff”; people who look at higher education as the realm of “ivory towers” or “coastal elites”, etc. - you haven’t seen any of that?
You’re listing ways in which society or some subgroups thereof possibly discriminate against smart people. But that is not the same thing as saying there is no discrimination against stupid people. Both can be true at once.
Yes, and if you’re just saying that you have a bias against certain insults because you’re insulted by things that are personal to you, that’s not surprising. But you seemed to be saying that there’s a class of insult that most people agree that they are worse than others and that people should think less of people when they use those insults. Yet you haven’t shown which insults those are or whether most people agree.
Yes, but I assume that it gets modded after you realize that it’s an insult. That at least gives some censure to the insulter. The fact that exceptions happen doesn’t invalidate the rule.
Yes, but it’s the only forum where insulting is allowed and even encouraged by many. It’s the defining feature. If not for that, all the threads could go in other forums.
I don’t think this at all.
Which part are you disagreeing with?
I just want to thank you for your concern that went all the way to including the slur and a link.
Now that we all have that I’m sure @MrDibble will be taket to task for his transgression.
Mostly that it’s the defining feature. People use strong language, but that’s not the same as insulting people. The insult posts are a smaller proportion, and I don’t think “many” encourage them. It’s the same few.
Is there actually a ban on strong language in the other forums? I didn’t think there was.