Extreme posts, in any community, allow others to respond in context of that perspective. It's been my experience that folks who post in patterns specifically intended to generate heated responses tend not to care about the content of those responses and will continue to ignore salient responses and just enjoy the reactions.
Any reactions.
Every online community has attention whores. Folks who engage in the cyclic repetition of extremes just to get others to flinch. It's an unfortunate side-effect of being able to hide behind a keyboard and not bear any real consequences for what you say or how you say it in a public format.
Fortunately, patterns are easy to discern. "Grain of salt" becomes relevant when people recognize intentionally disruptive or reactionary patterns, and that makes it easier to keep what most would consider trolling in perspective.
I tend to think it's less about being politically correct and more about recognizing honestly and integrity when it's presented in places like this. Honest opinions can withstand equally honest critique and disagreement.
Fabricated crap tossed out to spin folks up usually falls apart in very predictable fashions.
-Miki
