We do have visible voting and accolades in real life - I wonder if the issue here is that visible voting and accolades along with a history of conduct perform aberrantly when coupled with (seemingly) anonymous identities. In real life people may be reluctant to try and gain fame by taking extreme viewpoints due to their concern over impacting their day-to-day well being - leaving only those fervent believers to tote the flag. Compare that to the internet where you can roll up a new handle and give something a go - maybe getting a lot of encouragement and accolades in a mostly risk-free manner.

Whether what I stated above is an indication of a problem of the internet or a problem with the suppression of opinion in the real world is probably open to debate. But I do wonder if that's the reason we see such a rift in the tenor of discussion on the internet.