Some of them might be fishing to compassion, but I know what you mean generally. I suspect that people generally try to fit their idea of the world to match th

Some of them might be fishing to compassion, but I know what you mean generally. I suspect that people generally try to fit their idea of the world to match the world itself, but on some issues they hate it so much they would rather change the world to match their desires, or barring that, change their perception of the world. The latter requires systematic eradication of contradicting evidence, hence the result you're observing - convincing people who can be convinced and ghosting out the rest.