You keep making this about ego or me trying to "sound smart" and it's utterly exhausting because I'm trying to encourage others, not prop up myself. It's simply not about my ego or self-esteem (no matter how badly you want that straw man to stand up). My entire point is that people should trust their instincts more than they do. And no, I'm not absolving him of any crimes by doing this (that's more straw man).

Since you insist on projection, I'm going to indulge in some here. It sounds like you just want to engage in a virtue competition here, and you're reading a lot of consequences and implications into what I said that, in my view, are simply not there. It's not that I think everything you're saying is wrong. It's not. It's just so twisted out of context and I have to ask myself why. Is Pixel arguing in bad faith in order to do what Pixel is accusing me of? Which is to look smart (or virtuous) on the internet? I don't know, but the optics are pretty bad at this point.