The why of it all

Online positions and viewpoints on things tend to be hard line and black and white because people often have very fixed ideas on subjects despite their lack of knowledge. 

If we recall Bonhoeffer's three tenets of stupidity: outsourcing critical thinking, willful ignorance and conformity, you can see why so much of what we take in fails the test. 

Nuanced discussions are abandoned in favour of staunch positions that are at best flimsy. They may have an agenda or simply absorbed it from somewhere else and are now preaching it. 

Being comfortable with grays is pretty much mandatory and because we don't have all the answers we must be prepared to say "I don't know" 

The problem is the ego gets in the way of many people who can be derailed very easily by asking them a simple question 

"Explain to me logically and clearly why you believe this?"

Gotcha.