There may be an age or generational explanation for this, but I especially notice this behavior on Reddit while not nearly as much here on Lemmy (though maybe that’s also a mater of implementation).
It seems many are so quick to assert overly-confident positions, but then hit-and-run with some smarmy remark at even the slightest challenge, then quickly block. Like, not even crazy stuff. Just basic, civil disagreements. I can pretty well predict when it will happen, and it always feels like such a petty ego-sparing fingers-in-ears denial thing to do, and to me if anything shows they were not very confident in their views being challenged.
I think I’ve only blocked a handful of people over a decade who were actively spamming, stalking, or spewing extremely hateful rhetoric and I just reported them simultaneously. You have to cross a pretty extreme and irrational line for me to do that.
The reason I ask is to see if I’m missing something; to better understand the mindset of those who do.
For me, it depends on the context, and how the person responded to the comment.
If the reply had little to no contribution to my comment, that’s whatever I can ignore and move on, but if the reply is a clear “I’m trying to siderail this/ignoring what was actually said” or “I’m attacking you directly instead of the topic at hand” then I’m pretty firm in blocking. I don’t block for disagreement period, it’s when it moves into the unproductive field that I start to ignore or I block.