[W]hat I notice on netnews is that negative intelligence rules almost everywhere-- newsgroups are great sucking black-holes of negative intelligence, where the greatest bigots have the loudest voices, and the greatest say...
The way people get smarter, generally, is by looking at multiple points of view, and letting these pov's 'debate among themselves' in the most even-handed manner possible. But in newsgroups, people who try to lay things out evenhandedly get massively squelched....
You may wish to substitute the term "political blogs" for "netnews" as you are reading this.
bloggers, like paper journalists before them, realize that controversy and contention sell. some are in for the ratings, and some (like rebecca) are in it to make us think.