If you are serious about it, consider paying a physicist to discuss it with you:

https://aeon.co/ideas/what-i-learned-as-a-hired-consultant-for-autodidact-physicists

I work in theoretical physics, specifically quantum gravity. In my field, we all get them: the emails from amateur physicists who are convinced that they have solved a big problem, normally without understanding the problem in the first place. Like many of my colleagues, I would reply with advice, references and lecture notes. And, like my colleagues, I noticed that the effort was futile. The gap was too large; these were people who lacked even the basic knowledge to work in the area they wanted to contribute to. With a feeling of guilt, I stopped replying.

Then they came back into my life. I had graduated and moved to another job, then another. I’d had temporary contracts of between three months and five years. It normally works out somehow, but sometimes there’d be a gap between the end of one contract and the start of the next. This happened again last year. I have kids, and rent to pay, so I tried to think of creative ways to capitalise on 15 years of research experience.

As long as you have funding, quantum gravity is basic research at its finest. If not, it’s pretty much useless knowledge. Who, I wondered, could possibly need someone who knows the ins and outs of attempts to unify the forces and unravel the quantum behaviour of space-time? I thought of all the theories of everything in my inbox. And I put up a note on my blog offering physics consultation, including help with theory development: ‘Talk to a physicist. Call me on Skype. $50 per 20 minutes.’

The fact that all of our posts were downvoted by -3 seems like evidence against this.

I'm skeptical of that because DanArmak's post also has 3 downvotes, which seems thoroughly inoffensive.

I did not end up using it, although I periodically stumble upon this again and still think it's a neat way of thinking

Agreed.

I think I should probably reverse my original statement to "where intelligence/creativity/truthseeking is important" (similar sentence but narrows it down the focus - group intelligence and creativity usually don't matter for picking food, unless several people care about getting unusual/interesting food and roughly agree with each other on what kind to get)

The metanorm of "figure out what norm to use" is still important. But I do still assert that "the 12 second rule is a norm that should be used much more often i.e. at all in most rationalist discussion spaces"

There's certainly important meta-norms of "figure out the right norm to use for the current situation", and this is not meant to be overwhelmingly conclusive. But some notes:

1) I recommend this specifically for spaces where truth seeking is shared value, or where collective intelligence/creativity is particularly important. I'd be surprised if it took root in other contexts and wouldn't recommend it there. Sometimes you are playing the game of "fun, interesting banter" or some-such (even within rationalist spaces) and then you'll be doing different things.

2) Remember, part of the norm is "when you see people begin to talk without giving themselves or others time to think, interrupt them and say 'Hey, can we each have a chance to think first so we don't all anchor on one idea?'". If you're in a group where truth seeking, collective intelligence or creativity is important (even a non-rationalist space), I think this serves as good practice for being quick and assertive as well as polite, all while also strengthening meta-norms of "truth seeking is important." If you're including this part, I'd be surprised if it dampened your ability to quickly express your ideas when the situation demands it.

(I added some clarification to the original post based on this)

But again, definitely use your judgement based on what kind of situation you're actually in.

"12 seconds" was chosen mostly to be easier to remember. I think it's totally fine if people end up taking 10 or 15. (If people tend to get fixated on the number 12 we can come up with some other name, but so far "think before answering" had seemed less memorable than "12 second rule")

Thanks. I ended up putting them under the TLDR section. (I tend to find that once I make a TLDR section it turns out the rest of the post wasn't especially necessary. Do you think the rest of the story is helpful?)