Yes, I think that subconsciously I have an assumption that all conservatives are either idiots or extreme neoreactionary types, based mostly on my personal experience of a) knowing lots of idiot conservatives IRL whose opinions amount to "an immigrant looked at me the wrong way once!!!11!!1!" and b) arguing really loudly with extreme neoreactionaries online. I'm not assuming you hate me, I've just somehow managed to subconsciously accumulate a really low prior for someone I'm arguing with being a smart normal conservative. I will update and endeavour to correct that.

I'm not sure I would class myself as a conservative, but I can understand your assumption that conservatives are idiots, in that there was a time when I would have said that anyone who is against gay rights is a fascist theocrat. Now I realise, on a more intuitive level, that just because many arguments for a position are idiotic doesn't mean that there isn't a somewhat intelligent argument out there.

Oddly enough, IRL I mostly meet fairly intelligent people with opinions that amount to "anyone who disagrees with my left-wing politics is evil! That person supports a right wing party, I'd like to burn their house down!"

My theory is that facebook and twitter have ruined discourse because people can't fit opinions more complex into 140 characters.

I've been refreshing my page ten times a minute to check my karma hasn't gone down any further and that is a really terrible use of my time.

You're new here, I guess you'll get used to the karma system in time? In the meantime, have an upvote :)