In a world in which attention is an increasingly precious commodity, people go too far because it works.
Peaceful protestors marching in a polite and orderly fashion with all the right permits rarely get the news coverage that a couple of jerks who break windows and throw water bottles at the police do.
Likewise, mutually respectful exchanges of opinions on knitting (or poetry) sites rarely go viral.
If you measure success in terms of how many people are paying attention to your very worthy message, then holding a public auto-da-fé that will cause thousands of bystanders to fear your wrath is a more successful strategy than attempting one-by-one conversions of misguided or oblivious individuals, about whose feelings and mental health you actually care.
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