why do so many discussions turn contentious?

First, I have to send a BIG THANK YOU to whipsaw for that hilarious Louis CK bit! In less than 3 minutes that bit summarizes most of the ills of humanity, many of which have been touched upon in this thread. Humor is, often times, the best teacher.

With regard to the original premise, however, I guess I respectfully  disagree. Maybe this is because I'm a relative newbie to this forum and haven't encountered anywhere near that level of contentiousness in the threads I've followed. Thus far, for the most part, I've found this forum to be very helpful. I've received generally good, well intentioned guidance from folks who genuinely want to be helpful and selflessly share their experiences and expertise. Sometimes, that guidance and assistance has been outstanding! There are, of course, those who are occasionally snarky, bad-tempered and not inclined to lend assistance at all; those who just want to crow about the superiority of their equipment and their perceived expertise and/or intelligence. In so doing, folks like this accomplish nothing other than exposing their inferiority complex.

Audio opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one. And being semi anonymous noboby is afraid to voice their "ideas".

Through technology we have become an impersonal world where minimal face to face human interaction dominates. Basic manners are not required.  Heck, the basic respect and civility required for face to face interactions barely exists in the real world anymore, and definitely not on this or other forums.  There are very few forums that do not devolve into name calling or cheap shots. There are no consequences for doing so. 

Everyone involved in name calling or posting cheap shots blames the other posters.  I cringe as I read some of the posts on this forum. 

Each of these forums are populated with persons that came to that forum in the first place because of the same interest.  So stop the cycle. Post your opinion respectfully without the cheap shot.  Simple.

 

Here are some quotes to ponder.

“Through a vicious circle of pure reason skepsis itself becomes dogma.”  Johann Georg Hamann German philosopher

“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.”   Arthur Conan Doyle

“The reason that university politics is so vicious is that the stakes are so small.” Attributed to Henry Kissinger.

 

Apply any of these quotes to any hobbyist forum. This forum is not alone in the devolving rhetoric. Only we can change it.  Not the moderators.

well, the point of my question/original post, was to hopefully raise some consciousness about this "pattern of the times", not thinking of curing it, but hoping to make all participants somewhat thoughtful about how and what they write here....perhaps I am optimistic in thinking we have achieved a small step in that direction?

All blogs contain some vicious people, empowered by the anonymous nature of it. I learned long ago, through blogs other than audiogon, to simply ignore them. It actually carries much more weight than arguing with them. They do not like to be ignored :)
If you let them get to you, find another way to communicate than through blogs is my advice.