Michael Allen immediately blocked me after writing his response to my comment, so I'm posting my response here.

Please take a moment to reflect on how rude, dare I say pathologically antisocial, it is to respond to someone's comment, and then immediately shut off all communication.

***

With that said, here is my response to his comment:

Another problem with the "cancel culture doesn't exist" argument, is that it's irrelevant to the initial claim (i.e. the claim that cancel culture is bad).

If someone says that cancel culture is bad, then a proper argument against it should strive to show that cancel culture is good. If you instead strive to show simply that it doesn't exist, or that it's not very widespread, then your argument is beside the point, and you are taking place in a different conversation entirely.

Does that make sense to you? Do you understand why that is the case?

Even if it's not a widespread phenomenon, the question on the table is not whether it is widespread or not, but whether it is theoretically good or not.

Also, the assumption that I'm worried about "my heroes and gurus" is totally wrong. I don't care at all about Joe Rogan or Bill Maher, or any of these people. I'm just interested in finding the best ways to promote quality conversation, because I think quality conversation is the only way we can reach understanding.