> It's because this really is about people's feelings and sentiments on those topics. And those emotions range wildly from totally supportive to indifferent to

> It's because this really is about people's feelings and sentiments on those topics. And those emotions range wildly from totally supportive to indifferent to deeply threatened. There's another dimension on top of even this. Nuance and shortcuts to commonly-held understanding, provided by body language and intonation, readily used in spoken discussion, are completely unavailable online. Typing out full, unspoken context for argument points takes far too long. So online discussions distill these deeply, deeply held feelings into a few sentences, which leads to oversimplification of one's own argument, and reductio ad absurdum of the other person's. So while "the internet" gives us this "wonderful" opportunity to discuss things that matter in an open and socialized way, it subtly channels such discussions into the most-hyperbolic form of "discussion" by nature of it being typed. Look no further than Twitter for the "best" example of this phenomenon. #SocialMediaIsDestroyingSociety