zlacker

>>unquot+(OP)
Most of the comments here are either elaborating on the OP, or justify lurking. I am a mostly-lurker myself, but I felt the need to comment here, since I was hoping to see the discussion go into a different direction.

The OP uses the word "insane", not outlier. It's clickbaity, and used in jest, but I think it better captures a subtlety of this phenomenon: The prolific commenters are molding every discussion in their image. They might have an interesting angle on the story, or they might just be saying trivial things with beautiful prose. In any case, there is a lack of diversity in general -- discussions are driven by the worldview of a few.

That would be an argument for lurkers to make an effort, even if, like this comment, it's just a barely-formed idea.

Edit: "molding the discussion" -> "molding every discussion"

>>gniv+pB
That has always been the case with humanity in general. Think of book authors, there are few of them, but they've been influencing our thinking for hundreds of years. The problem now is, the barrier for entry has become incredibly low (although, this would have been true when the printing press was invented too).

I stopped using reddit because of this. I've no idea about the credibility of the authors, their intentions and their motivation. When I'm listening to someone's opinion, I'd like to know more about them, so I can decide for myself how seriously to take it.