I think there's a psychological element at play behind this....

I think there's a psychological element at play behind this. Most members of the general public I speak to have a perception stock investing is gambling. They see hollywood movies about wall st, news articles about traders and crypto has not helped either. The general public also seems to lump crypto and stocks together as if they are even remotely similar. Even day trading stocks has more fundamentals behind it than crypto.

There was a study about day trading that came out from korea, the insights are very illuminating to say the least.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237357723_How_Profitable_is_Day_Trading_A_Study_on_Day-Trading_in_Korean_Stock_Market

On the other side of the coin is fundamental investing, which requires intelligence, curiosity, patience and strength of will. We can find hundreds of examples where these 3 characteristics in the individual allowed them to be a contrarian, hold a position for a long period of time despite all the noise and walk away with some serious money. And there are plenty of examples of highly intelligent individuals and funds who invest for a living. They can repeat the returns process because they possess the underlying characteristics. Not all investors, but a dominant sub-section of the market that does repeat their success over and over. Both at an institutional and retail level. I don't think a single poster here would disagree with this statement.

And this is why the general public reacts in such a manner to any sort of logical stock discussion. For example, trying to explain that stocks are far more predictable than crypto because there's a business behind the stock that can be examined.

The discussion gets shut down because to admit the logic is true would therefore require the individual to admit they do not possess the required characteristics (at this point in time, I have seen people gain what is required by wanting to learn) and this is psychologically painful because it requires an immense amount of self-reflection. I am sure everyone here has gone through this process at some point in their life and it's not easy. But the reward at the other end is something far more valuable than money.

Far easier to play along with the image curated by hollywood and crypto, that all investing is gambling and people only get "lucky".

Disclaimer: not knocking the day traders here either but I don't do it so can't really offer too much of a perspective. But I do know it fuels the perception of the general public that stocks = gambling

Fundamentals obviously are not gambling, beyond a shadow of a doubt...if one puts the work in.