Another excellent post, Ryan! (sorry, I blame the autocorrect)

I like your list of the common landmines (actually, each one is a minefield in itself).

Avoiding landmines is your job. If it is a predictable consequence that something you could say will put people in mindless slogan-playback-mode, don't say it.

Right, modeling other people is a part of accurately mapping the territory (see how I cleverly used the local accessible meme, even though I hate it?), which is the first task of rationality.

If it happens, which it does, as far as I can tell, my only effective damage control strategy is to abort the conversation.

In other words, if your map of the minefield sucked and you got blown up, don't pretend that you didn't, refusal to update only makes your map worse.

A third prong could be playing "philosophical bomb squad", which means permanently defusing landmines by supplying satisfactory nonconfusing explanations of things without causing too many explosions in the process.

That's a part of your first prong, no?