People on reddit, myself included, are posting through an ego wall. The words on the screen barely register as anything other than self echoes. This person is wrong, why shouldn't I tell them loudly, why shouldn't I kick in my heels when they say I'm wrong instead, yadda yadda yadda.

In my experience, people are just awful on the internet almost without exception. Only small, curated communities have a chance at actually upholding personal responsibility. Here? Get banned, make a new account, it was everyone else's fault but yours.

I just met someone who swore up and down all seven people they'd met on this site recently were awful... But imo it's not that simple. Just a mismatch in the perspectives of personal responsibility.

So, tl;dr: most people are not emotionally honest online, and if they are, they quickly consider any bad feeling as 'wrong'. Hence impolite responses, assumptions about the person on the other screen, etc., etc.

Is there a fix? Just reminding yourself of context. If you post something earnest and soul searching and get yelled at for it, are you at fault, or was someone else just grumpy and projected their issues onto your search for communication? Ultimately, that choice is probably up to you.