It's like everything else though. If you don't normally interact with a field you're only going to get the dramatic content. If you're a web developer you won't see the 99% of times Linus Torvalds is normal, because that won't be relevant to you as you don't do kernel development. If you go look up pretty much any feminist icon (e.g. at TED) they are usually very thoughtful.

It would be interesting to see him elaborate on that, because he normally has a quite "hard" debating style himself. He has repeatedly spoken out for not having to limit what you say and against things like political correctness, and also approved things like hellbanning and 'downvote to disagree' on Hacker News.