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orthonormal comments on Be Nice to Non-Rationalists - Less Wrong Discussion
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To generalize: except for very specific circumstances (like talking to advanced rationalists who've declared Crocker's Rules), if you don't consider the probable effects of saying something unusual before you say it, then you fail at consequentialism. Words are actions!
This isn't license for dishonesty—there are many parameters you can vary and still keep the same content. (To name one that people easily forget, you can convince someone much more readily if you talk to them privately instead of before an audience!)
I suspect the optimal size for a discussion where minds are actually changed is not two people but three. I find a group of three is less prone to diversions from the factual to the personal level than a group of two, yet remains intimate enough to minimize the loss of face that disincentivizes changes of opinion.
This hypothesis seems difficult to test and become sure about, but maybe some of you would like to entertain the notion and play with it sometime.