Honestly I think our only hope of addressing this is having a farm more robust debating style, far more limited in scope than we are used to since tangents often peter out without follow up or any kind of synthesis or even a clear idea of what is and what isn't agreed upon in these debates.

I don't know what you mean by that-- could you expand on the details or supply an example of a place that has the sort of style you have in mind?

My instincts are to go for something less robust. I know that part of what drives my handling of the subject is a good bit of fear, and I suspect there was something of the sort going on for HughRustik.

I'm not sure what would need to change at LW to make people more comfortable with talking about their less respectable emotions.

I'm contemplating using a pseudonym, but that might not be useful-- a number of people have told me that I write the way I talk.

You've probably got a point about synthesis. It might help if people wrote summaries of where various debates stand. I bet that such summaries would get upvoted.