I like to travel beyond the trees to drop some truth on them once in a while and to keep them honest. Wouldn’t want the casual lurker to think FR is all about negative karma.
Sometimes I stick around a bit to smack ‘em around some.
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Sometimes your analyses are quite adept.
What do you think has happened with the rest of FR?
Why have they gone so far off the rails into . . . how to put it . . . fits of ignorant, tunnel visioned carping & scratching each others’ eyes out???
Self-selection. All the sane people are now on this thread.
If I may offer an opinion, since I’ve asked the same thing myself - my conclusion is that groupthink echo chambers are unstable environments, like a beehive that can easily be whipped into a frenzy. Cognitive dissonance is a real thing, and when facts and data continue to pile up that don’t support the groupthink, the group reacts in the ways you noted.
Poke a hive and you get a flurry of angry bees, blow a little smoke at it and they go back to sleep.