Pretty much. It's definitely not the best place for reasonable discussion and I believe it does influence its users; at least slightly. After four years of reddit, I get a bit of 'culture' shock on smaller sites like Hubski because of the variety of ideas being thrown around. People here have tendencies, but those tendencies are not overbearing or all-consuming. Hubski and similar sites aren't an echo chamber or hivemind like Reddit often is. There's no downvoting, so controversial posts and viewpoints going against the grain aren't silenced and crammed to the bottom of the barrel. They're nestled among the others like they should be. I really like that. As for getting angry/defensive at people who disagree with me...I think that's more to do with my own personality, and, honestly, human nature - than Reddit's influence.