The goal isn't to convince the shouters, it's to convince those who might follow the shouters. Moderate positions must have their own advocates, because people aren't sufficiently informed on all issues to tell the difference between extremists and moderates.

My point is that you could write something that can push in a certain direction without alerting the shouters. It generally requires pushing only very gently, but it's not impossible if you're skilled.

Slightly off-topic, but what seemed so extremely surprising to me is that googlers who are supposed to be extremely smart were the shouters here. Blatant mis-representations were memed, demonstrating lack of both reading comprehension and basic statistics, not to mention biology. Where are the supposedly smartest people of the planet!

It always makes me sad to see people that think employees of any corporation are "the smartest people on the planet." It shows how effective PR can be.

Of course google employees are just the same as everyone else in the Valley. Which means: generally smart, and also including the same political and psychological quirks - some good, some bad- as everyone else. No better and no worse than other people in the area.

> Where are the supposedly smartest people of the planet!

Who thinks that corporate drones working for an evil megacorp are the smartest people?