Can you honestly say that the pirate bay isn't dedicated, and almost exclusively used for the distribution of material protected by copyright?Well, we don't know. There might be zillions of long-tail torrents with one seeder and three peers, distributing legal stuff, but I personally don't go around spouting numbers like the parent poster.
Furthermore, claiming that the author hates extroverts due to some underlaying psychological issues is really unnecessary.
Yup, it was an ad-hominem as much as parent's statement was an ad-hominem ("they enjoy the attention", etc etc).
Why is it so hard to have an open, honest, mature discussion about piracy and the pirate bay?
Because of the Overton window.
Agents on one side (the copyright mafia) lie through their teeth and have access to every propaganda channel and every established power. Internet people always end up on the defensive, and the window is pushed further and further into insanity.
For twenty years, us geeks have had open, honest, mature discussions about piracy, both among ourselves and with the copyright mafia, and it has done exactly ZERO amount of good, they are still pushing as hard as in the Napster days; now it's our time to be unreasonable. It's not our responsibility to be reasonable or amenable, we simply build and use the technology and make our requests very clear; the political system will have to work out a "just" balance or compromise of some sort, or criminalize us all and live with the consequences.