Your point about the debate thing is really what gets me. They ask a question and the person on the other end might be close to the answer or they might give some vague response but the moderators are always gutless about it.
“I asked you this question, answer it or we will assume you have no answer and move on.”
I feel like we did this to ourselves over generations, probably even hundreds of years, and it’s purely a fear response based in the fact we can’t help but allow the worst kinds of people to “lead” us.
Moderates are what you get when you essentially selectively breed for those “neurotypical” people who can quietly work 9-5 jobs without complaining(read: standing up for themselves) and who are totally ok with “not rocking the boat” by demanding respect at their workplaces. They’re the people who take twice as long to do anything but they’ll show up at 8:30am like good little zombies and act like their deep burnout is just a fact of life because if it wasn’t then that makes them have to consider doing literally anything about it.
I know too many people in my field who are afraid of their bosses and they are the ones the bosses like even if they do worse work. So us “neurodivergent” people are pushed out of jobs because we even politely ask for a little of what corporate propoganda says it cares about on its “about us” page. You cannot be careful enough with their feelings because they do not care and no amount of being moderate will appease them.