(To be as charitable as possible to your point, I did say "cringe", but I didn't mean it in the way that you're interpreting it. I just meant "cringe", in the same way that I cringe when I see someone who boldly expresses an opinion about anything that is factually incorrect, or perhaps, when a stranger starts selling you on their multi-level-marketing scheme in the bathroom. More like "oh god, we're going to do this now, are we?", than a "I reject basic facts of history that the average US high school student should know, including the approximate order of major historical events" sort of thing.)
But hey, I also don't think observing the basic fact that the railroads led to the "opening of the west" would qualify as "lauding" that fact, any more than observing that "George Washington was the first US president" would be "lauding" George Washington. For that matter, I can also enjoy a train ride without feeling the urge to "acknowledge" that Cornelius Vanderbilt did some bad things.
(...though I sadly acknowledge that we're well 'round that bend as a society)
It's like having a casual chat with a colleague and then they trauma dump about what happened to them when they were 15 or whatever. Like okay, cool, take it to therapy, this isn't the place, you're just making things awkward for everyone.
> Can't fathom why this bothers you so much
Really? They just explained it particularly well.
> because it makes you uncomfortable?
I think they're taking issue over the fact that it is not only mostly irrelevant but it's also completely incorrect.
You're calling timr the bad guy for noticing. It's OK to notice things.
It's one thing to say "look, they said X" than to say "please don't talk about X on the internet".
And op’s point stands. Tech is power; and almost any tech can be used and abused. But tossing this in seems lazy at best.
[1] It might even work better, since it lets you draw your own conclusions about the anecdote. Not everything needs to be a lesson.