Perhaps. IMO there’s also a behavioural difference. People here seem to bubble wrap everything. I’ve not yet witnessed an interesting intellectual confrontation. There’s a kind of fake facade of performative kindness to every interaction here

Again, not sure about the language you're using... But I have felt that here it's been "absence of interaction" is the way to go :-) One can be adversarial in many ways that are not performative but still polite. What's the point of science if not healthily adversarial??