I think a lot of the backlash is because people are used to being inside their comfortable echo chambers where dissenting voices are totally marginalised and they felt like their opinions were universally shared among sensible people.

With federation, those echo chambers are interacting with each-other a lot more than they usually would, on relatively equal footing, and being confronted by the idea that other people think that your opinions are shit and that you tacitly support some evil practice is an uncomfortable feeling! The natural inclination is to reject that sort of experience as a jerk who is intentionally trolling you, personally, because they’re wrong or brainwashed or whatever.

The reality is that we’re all just flawed people who aren’t very good at dealing with our emotions and it’s a lot easier to blame and banish someone who disagrees with us than to talk to them and come to a consensus. But the latter is how we actually solve our conflicts.

We have a lot more in common with each-other than separates us.

Except from Nazis, fuck Nazis.