Right. Stop. Just stop. I can see right through what you're doing now.

It wasn't a "perfectly reasonable hypothesis", it was meant to reflect bad on me; it was an oblique accusation that I broke the social norm of not calling people stupid, or not arrogantly believing everybody who disagrees with me to be stupid. Of course I don't believe that you, or anybody smart enough to be on LW, would ever give serious consideration to the hypothesis that they're really, truly, honest-to-God dumb; no, you're a bunch of reasonably smart guys that are aware that they're smart. Of course that I chose the other interpretation of your words, the one that is in line with your interests in this discussion, the one that doesn't conflict with the fact that people tend to maintain a flattering image of themselves, especially when facing people they disagree with, the one that is consistent with the kind of attitude you maintained towards me during this discussion -- the one that assumes bad faith on your part. So no, you can't just go around now and say that, oh, no, it was totally sincere and innocent.

As for the big question of the story -- do I believe one has to be a dumbass like this acquaintance of mine to disagree with me on this? Of course not -- predictably. I wasn't surprised that they (the acquaintance) didn't see it because, take my word for it, they just weren't blessed with great intelligence. If, on the other hand, I see someone on here disagreeing with me on this, I explain it to myself this way: perhaps they misunderstood, or perhaps they reacted badly to one part of my post and consistency compelled them to react badly to the rest, or maybe even (but this is unlikely) I am missing something. But the hypothesis that I just ran into a complete idiot doesn't cross my mind. And I'm writing this just so that I don't have to explain myself again.

That was tiresome. Going through the intricacies of interpersonal affairs always is. Please, do me a favour and next time we talk, do your part on cutting the micropolitics to a minimum; the amount of noise that a non-neutral reply generates is ridiculous.