I love it when you guys think you have it all figured out and post long explanations with links. I'm serious.
Still,
There is little or no discussion.
There is little or no give and take or cooperative development.
There is mostly pontification.
Perhaps it is an expression of the medium in that it takes a long time to put all of this down in type. None of us puts this endevour at the top of our priorities. Not in this forum at least.
I certainly do NOT have it all figured out.
But I do have strong opinions backed up by decades of study in the soft science of Socio-cultural Anthropology. In my opinion, the primary driver of the disagreements in internet boards is the inability of the individual to internalize a significant portion of the information available on a given topic. More precisely, there is no structure to the interaction as in a debate or a classroom, etc,. On top of all that, there is no reward for collaboration or compromise. The opposite is in fact the case. It is a purely competitive environment where each post is like a swipe of the sword.
In spite of that, I enjoy your links and general impressions of what is being said.
From the social scientific perspective it is almost a complete microcosmic holigram.
We and our children are the generations that will be studied for a thousand years.