I'm not sure that anything should be done about it, at least if we look at it from whole society's perspective. (Or rather, we should try to avoid the echo chamber effect if possible, but not at the cost of reducing dispassionate discussion.) If some places discuss sensitive issues dispassionately, then those places risk becoming echo chambers; but if no place does so, then there won't be any place for dispassionate discussion of those issues. I have a hard time believing that a policy that led to some issue only being discussed in emotionally charged terms would be a net good for society.
I have a hard time believing that a policy that led to some issue only being discussed in emotionally charged terms would be a net good for society.
But you're also a white man and have an obvious lack of experience in this situation that functions as an unknown unknown. You'd be wise to be conservative in your conclusions.
As a white man myself, I feel it's entirely reasonable to refuse to dispassionately discuss the matter of a boot on one's own face. There are some situations in which case it is entirely appropriate to react with the deepest of passion...
A long blog post explains why the author, a feminist, is not comfortable with the rationalist community despite thinking it is "super cool and interesting". It's directed specifically at Yvain, but it's probably general enough to be of some interest here.
http://apophemi.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/why-im-not-on-the-rationalist-masterlist/
I'm not sure if I can summarize this fairly but the main thrust seems to be that we are overly willing to entertain offensive/taboo/hurtful ideas and this drives off many types of people. Here's a quote:
The author perceives a link between LW type open discourse and danger to minority groups. I'm not sure whether that's true or not. Take race. Many LWers are willing to entertain ideas about the existence and possible importance of average group differences in psychological traits. So, maybe LWers are racists. But they're racists who continually obsess over optimizing their philanthropic contributions to African charities. So, maybe not racists in a dangerous way?
An overly rosy view, perhaps, and I don't want to deny the reality of the blogger's experience. Clearly, the person is intelligent and attracted to some aspects of LW discourse while turned off by other aspects.