Yabia Omer,
“I am claiming to be clean from any of the issues I mentioned.”
I think you are getting a strong reaction because your OP is coming across as hypocritical. “Hallel with Bracha on YH” and “Is Arabic Holy?” are examples of threads you opened seemingly with no purpose but to start flame wars. Other threads such as “Ashkenazic trauma” seemingly have little point other than to insult swaths of Jews. On what basis do you claim to be “clean” of these issues?
“But it got me thinking about just how much time and effort people put into things that are trivial.”
Why do you appoint yourself the arbiter of what is trivial and what is not? So what if people want to discuss socks? Socks are ubiquitous and are one of the more important comfort-related aspects of what we wear. If you have a child with sensory sensitivities, you’ll find that socks can bring on the biggest meltdowns. And that thread wasn’t even really about socks. If a thread topic doesn’t interest you or the conversation doesn’t seem productive or nice, skip it!
“And as soon as someone disagrees with a point of view, the go-to reaction is to insult them. Rather than saying I disagree with you because of a, b, c, instead the go-to is “you’re Reform, you’re open orthodox, you’re liberal….””
I agree and it’s unfortunate. I personally try to avoid labeling and insulting, and stick to the points of debate, and I hope that I’m successful most of the time. But is responding with condescension towards the entire CR really the best way to improve the discourse?