Thank you, I'll try to keep it in mind. I'll admit that the curtness of my original question was not just you misreading it, but it did (also) come from a place of genuine confusion.

For what it's worth, it's not even that I don't see merit to their points. I'm just unable to trust that they're being genuine, not the least for how they conduct themselves (which I only fault them for so much). This also impacts my ability to reason about their points clearly.

Sadly, I'm not able to pitch any systematic solutions.