I thought it was going to be about light polarization. Would be interesting if that was also a proximity problem.

As for people, there's a great video that explains this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

I think people are more eager to minimize tension in person. "polarization" is a term used most by the people that cause the tension in the first place. They use the term to dismiss the actual argument. Unfortunately, they're more likely to get their way through in-person decision making, because they're more comfortable standing in the way, and make everyone else walk around them. Not sure which role the author played in this one, but somebody just wanted to get past the discussion because they wanted it to end, not because the right conclusion was finally reached.

The difference in latency between a text-based messaging system and a voice call is so extreme that the diference between a voice call and an in-person meeting is practically non-existent in comparison.

It's common for a topic to be too complex to hash out over text-based messaging platform, but rare for it to be too complex for a voice call but not an in-person meeting.

Hmm. I'm kind of hearing a hint of magnetic domains in a ferromagentic material. And when the external field acts on it, the domains grow or shrink. You can see this kind of effect as, for example, Biden's economic policies fail to help the little people, and so Trump's domain grows, and then Trump's economic policies fail to help people, and so the blue domain grows.