I got heated, sure, but only because I invested literally hours writing responses in a discussion with someone who has different perspective than me only to have the come in and claim that we don’t make an effort to engage different perspectives.
You’re describing a fantasy scenario here where people “don’t tolerate dissent” despite the fact that not only was your dissent tolerated but it was entertained for fucking months.
“Not tolerating dissent” is when the majority of replies are telling you to fuck off, or when attacks are overwhelmingly personal, or when you get banned from the thread or harassed elsewhere on the site. If this has happened as the majority of your interactions, then we can talk, but what I have seen is mostly people engaging you on the merits of your arguments.
“People don’t like being wrong” is hardly a fresh take and it definitely doesn’t mean that this place is an insidious hivemind with an Orwellian desire to crush the wrongthink.
What you’re describing as “not tolerating dissent” is, conveniently, identical to bunch of people tolerating your dissent but caring enough to tell your wrong, often with pages of lively conversation.
I just want you to take a step back and see the irony.