Ever since I started reading this site, I’ve always thought that if it lived up to its ideal perfectly, one would be able to post arbitrarily outrageous, offensive, and inflammatory ideas, and get back nothing except calm replies detailing the factual and logical errors contained in them.
I very much agree with your interpretation of the ideals of rationality and I aspire to reach such a level of self-control myself someday. But it also occured to me that embracing this attitudein excess could cause people to push themselves too hard. By that I mean being unable to admit to themselves that they have fallen prey to the mind killer and should refrain from talking until they regain their calm, instead plowing on, unsuccessfully trying to write a level-headed response because that’s what a good rationalist would do.
I very much agree with your interpretation of the ideals of rationality and I aspire to reach such a level of self-control myself someday. But it also occured to me that embracing this attitudein excess could cause people to push themselves too hard. By that I mean being unable to admit to themselves that they have fallen prey to the mind killer and should refrain from talking until they regain their calm, instead plowing on, unsuccessfully trying to write a level-headed response because that’s what a good rationalist would do.