Comment by vlunkr
5 years ago
This is a great observation. I think one difference is that on the internet, the social gathering is much bigger, and these people end up finding each other. In real life, if you start ranting about flat earth or something, it's likely that no one around will agree with you and not engage. But if you do it online, you'll find plenty of others. (maybe trolls, but how can you really know?) So now you think maybe your ideas aren't so crazy. And normally rational people see all these people starting to believe in flat earth, and that no one is standing up to them, and that makes them unsure and uncomfortable.
Maybe flat earth isn't the best example, but you know, I don't want to looks like I'm opposed to POPULAR_OPINION_ONLINE lol
I'd go for a much more prosaic example, myself. How about Docker?
Among members of my team, I have far and away the most moderate opinions on Docker. I'm pretty sure that this is largely because I'm also the one tasked with maintaining what infrastructure we have that's based on Docker. So my opinions are largely driven by first-hand experience, whereas my colleagues' opinions are largely driven by things they read on the Internet.