""I would also say that many people see the only purpose of a discussion to be to convert the other person to your view or to win an argument by demolition of their point of view. ""

"Many", as noted above, may actually be a minority on a few thread topics?

Frequently, on heated thread topics, I suspect there is little anticipation of converting those on the other side of the discussion to conversion. However, there may be an anticipation, often unwarranted, that gullable thread observers (if they exist) might be converted?