This is not meant as an attack against any particular belief, I am simply confused by a pattern that I see reoccurring over and over in many comment threads around the internet (and now on HN too).
As you might have noticed, it happens especially over issues that people have such strongly divided opinions on that they form into "camps" around their views.
And what I observed is that every time there's a big scandal in the media, someone from Camp 1 will come up and say "Wow this is horrible and I am really offended at [whatever the thing-of-the-week is]".
And then someone from Camp 2 will come up and say "WOW. You people from Camp 1 are TOTALLY overreacting ALL THE TIME. CALM DOWN. STOP BEING OFFENDED AT EVERYTHING", while being seemingly oblivious to the fact that in pure objective terms they are the less calm and the one more offended between the two of them. And the fact that they're engaging in exactly the same kind of behaviour that they are saying people should stop engaging in.
I've seen this pattern reoccur regardless of which actual group we put in place instead of "Camp 1" and "Camp 2", so I'm not trying to say that any particular view is better than the other.
Simply I'm just wondering if am I the only one baffled by this behaviour? Like, what is your take on these people when you see them? Are they intentionally trolling and trying to start an inflammatory argument, or are they simply lacking in self-reflection?
