Well, thank you for writing this comment in a length that allows sufficient precision to express your thought and provide examples.
The only part I would disagree with is this:
>So even though you still could, no doubt, come up with some examples, through the process of writing the essay (or blog post), you'd... realize it was bullshit.
>And then, you wouldn't publish the essay.
Alas, I feel you have some very optimistic assumptions about the level of self-awareness of someone who would otherwise indulge in "fallacious pithiness", the essence of which is condensing a narrative down to a quirky soundbite.
The pithiness doesn't come for free; the process of reduction is even more laborious than the one of expanding on a thought.
That road goes both ways: the same false narrative can be beefed up with numerous examples and arguments that support it, all while leaving the author immensely satisfied with the result.
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Side note: as an autistic person, I used to make the same mistake, namely, thinking that fallacious argument of the sort we see here are the undesired result of carelessness that could be avoided if only the processes were improved.
Alas, such results, more often than not, are the outcome of a lack of the desire to find and express something that one feels confident is true. Such desire, however, is an autistic trait[1].
Most people find it not only acceptable, but desirable and enjoyable to construct narratives that look good, regardless of their veracity in the actual world we live in.
The laws of physics allow for a society in which PG's narrative would be true; and our society allows for enough outlier examples to cherry-pick for it. (I have experienced criticism for changing my opinion in a long discussion, the change stemming from being convinced that the other side has a good point - but that was an isolated incident). Without an urge to fact-check oneself (is what I say really true?), entertaining these thought experiments and turning them into words for others to read is a pleasant pastime.
It's the prose equivalent of vapid poetry, with pithiness being the constraint instead of rhyme. And it hits just the same.
[1] https://www.employmentautism.org.uk/blog/autism-and-honesty