I think part of the problem is the circumstances of two people meeting on social media. It's like one of those break-the-ice prompts for new coworkers, but instead of lighthearted nonsense, the card says "the gays are evil, discuss!".

In the real world, two very different people might meet and start to build a history and a good deal of rapport and trust with each other before ever getting anywhere close to a divisive issue. When they do eventually get there, without a mob watching, without the fear of every word going in the permanent record, the conversation would likely be far less of a dumpster fire, and minds might actually be changed.

As it is, a lot of the discourse you see online is indescribably bad, and I think a lot of it is down to throwing two strangers into a conversation that they would never naturally arrive at upon first meeting.

> Because in general, those conversations are about important things that affect your life.

the conversations are about important things that effect your life, the conversations themselves aren't important and don't actually effect your life.

I find this argument compelling, but the counter-point is: what change is politicing everything going to affect? Will political comments on a codebase make it safer to be homosexual in Saudi Arabia? If not, combining those two things feels like an exercise in futility.

>Because in general, those conversations are about important things that affect your life.

I believe it’s very important to be able to calmly and genially argue points which are important to you. There may not be any value in merely being able to argue calmly and politely for points in which you have no interest.