Richard:
I can certainly explain somewhat why some people get blasted and some people don't so much.
Just as a metaphor, but equally likely to trigger kerfuffle: let's say that I claim that I love strawberry pies but hate rhubarb and thus every strawberry rhubarb pie. Someone else comes and says they love rhubarb and strawberry rhubarb pies are their favorite. So far, there's nothing to say. It's personal preference, and that's exactly why I told Sean he's more than welcome to hate frontloaders and love toploaders. It's no weirder than loving coffee vs. disliking tea and vice-versa.
Now, imagine that I went further than that and claimed that the only good pies are strawberry rhubarb pies and anyone would be foolish not to like them and everything else is crap, don't you know that rhubarb is packed with essential vitamins and minerals, including vitamin K, the vitamin B complex and manganese and magnesium, not to mention fiber?
Of course, that would open the door for everyone to claim that rhubarb is *maybe* safe in medicinal amounts for up to 3 months, and can cause stomach and intestinal pain, diarrhea, uterine contractions, muscular weakness, bone loss, potassium loss, irregular heart rhythm and the oxalic acid in rhubarb can cause kidney stones.
The problem is not that Sean likes one thing and dislikes/hates another. The problem is when he confuses "I like this" with "this is the best". No one only likes the best things. Just because I like my car, doesn't make my car the best. Just because Sean hates my car (it's modern), doesn't make it the worst.
Like I told you before, I've seen this cycle many times in the website and way too many times in the internet at large. At first, and to people not paying attention, this is an interaction that is very hard to anyone to distinguish between the person is a troll and the person is in the spectrum, which lots of people here are.
That is one of the reasons I've been trying to gently nudge/persuade Sean into a slightly different mode of interaction, where he can express his preferences and avoid saying things that are vaguely true to blatant falsehoods. Because in the current climate, people here that are tired of being lied to *will* have a very hard time resisting the impulse to respond with scientific proofs.
And it's very hard sometimes to make those not sound condescending, and condescending always makes people sound elitist.
I've known a lot of people here *personally*, for almost two decades now. They are not elitist, quite the contrary.
For example, I do not have *any* high end cars, but I will recognize that some of those are *much* much better than any cars I've had over the years. This is not elitism, this is recognizing truth when one sees it. In fact, an awful lot of things my cars have had over the years, like air conditioning, anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, all-wheel drive, power brakes, power steering, automatic transmission, air bags, seat belts etc came from high-end cars once.
I say this with sincerity: when in doubt, it's best to *ask* about details, instead of proclaiming things that may not be true. It's also best to phrase things in such a way that they are "I" statements, so, instead of "toploaders are the only authentic automatic washers", one might say "I like/prefer top loading automatic washers".
I hope this helps,
-- Paulo.
