I was just pointing out that I was taking your OP seriously, and responding to it to he best of my ability. That it wasn’t the way you wanted people to respond is unfortunate, but most, I believe, responded in good faith based on their reading.
I’m just saying that I don’t feel that there was much of fighting the hypothetical in that thread. It may not have turned out the way you wanted, but I don’t think it was because people weren’t taking it seriously enough.
Now, this thread, where the very first post is an adamant, and capitalized, refusal to accept the hypothetical in the OP, is a very good example.
THIS.
I start thinking about all the ways I’m going to have to defend myself and provide cites for every single assumption. After I make edits and preview it a few times I lose interest and go do something else.
You know, while I agree with what you said in the OP, I’ve got to admit I’m kind of grateful for the culture here because I think it has made me a better communicator for a few reasons:
1 (the biggest one) - I have learned a lot about how to phrase a question tactfully, how to respond to perceived ignorance tactfully, and how to disagree with other people tactfully. When I was younger (i.e., when I joined this board ten years ago), I was sometimes more brash than I really should have been, but every time I posted here, I knew that if I were rude or careless someone would respond in kind. This sort of mental training has spilled over into real life, and I have gotten multiple compliments from people who have known me for a while and recognize that I am more tactful than I used to be.
2 - I am less likely to respond to a question with some sort of “fact” that I heard somewhere and have not verified. Since I know I’ll be called out if it’s not verifiable, I make an effort to be quiet if I don’t know what I’m talking about, research before responding, and if all else fails, admit defeat when I realize I didn’t know what I was talking about. This, too, is an attribute that has spilled over into real life.
3 - I was raised in a right-leaning household and still am mildly right-leaning. I believe that most opinionated people have strong opinions because they do not truly grasp the views of people who disagree with them, and instead reduce those views to over-simplifications that are so stupid that nearly anyone would agree it’s a stupid viewpoint (and that it’s not actually how they think). Frequenting this board has made me (in my opinion) much better than most people at understanding the viewpoint of people that disagree with me, so much so that just about every Democrat I talk to thinks I’m a Republican and every Republican thinks I’m a Democrat.