> He realises the current woe of things but doesn't realise he's been arguing with bot farms and teams of people hired just for this reason - to sow doom, arguments and engagement.

I've had the same kind of argument you'd swear was a bot with real people I know offline. The best explanation I could come up with was that they got radicalized online, was shameless about arguing in bad faith, and was willing to say heinous things in a group text, but refused to continue the discussion when I challenged them to do so IRL when I next met them - their electronic words towards me were particularly foul. Polarization, online echo-chambers, lack of consequences, and shamelessness have conspired to crater the quality of discourse and provide plenty of fuel for bots and psy-ops operators to fan the flames.