I welcome discussion and expect all respectful good-faith comments to be met with respectful good-faith responses. Failure to do so, as well as obscenity, excessive profanity, willful dishonesty, bigotry of any kind, calls to violence, and repeatedly dodging rebuttal points or employing egregious logical fallacies such as straw-man arguments are all grounds for banning at my discretion.

However, I also value honesty and candor above decorum, so I will allow—up to a point, evaluated on a case-by-case basis—comments substantively challenging the character of anyone who engages in the above misconduct, as well as arguments making an intelligent case against the morality of any views plausibly linked to human suffering. Allowing demagogues and sophists to discredit themselves with their own words is often more effective than silencing them.

I reserve the right to end comment threads that have devolved into petty sniping or repetitiveness, or have otherwise lost any semblance of productivity.