What interests me is the opposite situation: When a minority imposes itself not because they can force themselves on others, because they are immune to external

What interests me is the opposite situation: When a minority imposes itself not because they can force themselves on others, because they are immune to external influence. It's the same principle. We see a lot of that in OSS, and I've seen it happen in companies: Bad behavior designed to make dissenting opinion go away (when sometimes the dissenting opinion is to just not be insulting), runs amok, and forces the lowest common denominator of behavior. So IMO, it's not really about tolerance or intolerance, but about which side allows itself to be influenced, either by law, or pressure. When enough pressure to make someone resign is stronger, you end up with an environment where the intolerant wins. But in an environment where this doesn't happen, it's the people who have more to lose by leaving that wins. You can imagine how that is not helpful in a company: It's normally your best employees that have better alternatives when they leave. Another important part is whether we really know everyone's opinion. When an opinion is considered impolite, we will think it's less popular than it really is, because people that share it will just be quite about it. It's one of the reasons we've seen quick changes of opinion in topics like Gay marriage: It's not that opinions change that quickly, but that what was considered the "polite opinion" has had a big reversal. So it isn't just about tolerance. Ultimately what matters is, who really wins? An OSS project that kicks people out, for one mechanism or the other, wins when it keeps the most value. Maybe removing dissent is helpful. Maybe the dissent was making things better. So whether this effect is good, or bad, happens in a case by case basis.