Sayer's law

Sayer's law states, "The lower the stakes, the more vicious the politics." Originally coined to describe academic politics, it's recently been applied to online politics. According to Chris Williamson and Gurwinder Bhogal on the Modern Wisdom, when issues have low stakes, people often exaggerate the importance of their struggles. This exaggeration stems from an ego-driven desire to make these issues seem more significant than they are.

In high-stakes situations, precision and truth in language are critical because there are tangible risks to being incorrect. Conversely, in low-stakes scenarios, sensationalist language is more common because there's less at risk for misrepresenting reality. This phenomenon can be observed in culture wars, where both the left and right use extreme language to inflate the perceived importance of their issues 1.