The interior surface of the shell is larger than the surface of the asteroid, reducing the density. I don't know if this completely compensates for that effect or if there's also something else involved, but you didn't even consider it. (And if you try to fix this by making the asteroid so big that it's more like a flat sheet, the flat sheet's escape velocity, at the scale where it behaves like a flat sheet, is infinite.)

Here’s why I believe a slight density increase near the shell is not only possible but statistically inevetable:

This sort of issue is what people invented numbers and equations for.

If you find yourself admitting that nothing will move you to change your mind, then it means you are not ready to take part in this debate.

Guess I'm not responding to those Holocaust deniers then. Or even to homeopaths or young earth creationists.

The beauty of “hot” is that it is a relative term. Hot for whom?

It's implicitly relative to the speaker and/or the listener. Claiming that because you didn't specify one of those it's from the perspective of an ice cube is just another example of the same thing: being "clever" by deliberately pretending that there's no such thing as conversational implicature.

Having your words be literally accurate is not the spark of genius you think it is.

Bob’s statement 2: “All I really meant was that I had blue pens at my house” is not literally true. For what proposition is that statement being used as evidence?

1. It's not being used as evidence for anything.

2. "All I really meant" is a colloquial way of saying "the part relevant to the proposition in question was..." As such, it was in fact truthful.

I always ask “Is there anyone brave enough to get boiling hot water poured in their hand?” There is always someone. The shock is universal, each time newly boiled water is poured into a tense hand:

“It is cold!?”

Yes,

Then it's not boiling hot water, it's boiling cold water.

Also, this sort of thing is not clever. Even if you leave out the word "hot", it amounts to "ha ha, you thought I was talking about a central example". People are justified in thinking you are talking about a central example.

"The purpose of a system is what it does" doesn't mean that motivations don't exist. It does mean that motivations are often illegible. If people behave as if they think suffering is important, and they say things that are roughly along those lines, looking for a smoking gun where someone actually goes on record as saying that in a precise way isn't going to be very useful.

If you are not Scott, remember "the purpose of a system is what it does". Someone may not say outright "I want you to feel pain", yet may still treat people's pain as very unimportant when implementing policy.

You need to distinguish between errors that are of no significance and errors that are significant. Although Bob's words were not literally true, the error is not relevant to the proposition for which the statement was used as evidence. (That's what a nitpick means: caring about an error that is not relevant to the associated proposition.)

It's true that people in some obscure small town may not be aware of online stereotypes, but the stereotype isn't the cause of the problem, it's the result. People already notice that wearing a suit or fedora is weird behavior, and they already understand the signal sent out by it. If they see many occurrences of the same weird behavior, they will notice the trend and put a label on it, but the label is not the cause of their disdain.

you will find that the men generally know very little about clothing and will wear what looks good to them

Knowing little isn't the same as knowing nothing. Suits and fedoras are things that even people who don't know much know enough not to wear inappropriately.

teased ... means full acceptance and not just toleration

I think you are off base here.

It means "you've spent some of your weirdness points, but not so many as to end the friendship".