Futurology

I'm not trying to make their point for them. I'm trying to softly suggest a course of action that will make conversing online easier for you and the people you interact with.

I'm a little sensitive to this sort of stuff right now because one of the better people on lemmy, Admiral Patrick, is shutting down their lemmy instance dubvee in part due to patterns of people assuming bad faith in online discourse.

Just save yourself the effort by not assuming they meant something bad in the first place. Most people with the kind of terrible opinions you assumed will out themselves fast enough, without assuming bad faith. There's very little to gain by trying to "hunt them down". They'll tell you who they are themselves very directly.

It is not the other person's responsibility to respond to arguments against and counter points to things they never said, just because you thought they might mean it. This isn't a press conference. You aren't some reporter trying to catch somebody out in a contreversial statement to help pump reader numbers. This is a relatively casual conversation online. Be casual. Be kind.

I hope I've made my thoughts clear on this. Either way, I'm done. Hope you have a good day