In the last 6 months, I've come to the conclusion that I am really strongly against people being mean (particularly in intellectual contexts).

There's an obvious cost to being mean -- it causes unnecessary suffering. But that's not my focus. I've realized that, when I see people being mean on the internet, I trust their epistemics way less.

I've seen all sorts of uncharitable, generalizing takes. e.g. "Polyamorous people aren't capable of falling in love." Polyamorous people feel hurt reading it, but more importantly, it's just a dumb claim with no basis. (Or, at best, it's underspecified.) Reading it and believing it will make you understand reality less accurately.

e.g. "Trans women are actually men" is a statement that makes a lot of people feel hurt. But also: what is it even claiming? The actual meaning is so unclear.

Furthermore, emotionally-activating statements make people struggle to think clearly. If you call your conversational partner an idiot, that makes it harder for them to think straight and take your best points seriously. It makes other people afraid to speak up, because *they* don't want to be called idiots. You reduce your persuasive power, and you reduce the dissenting arguments you'll get in the future -- both are issues if you support truth-seeking.

When I see people being mean on Twitter, I unfollow, mute, and/or block. Even if they have interesting ideas, I just don't trust their reasoning skills after I see them behave really uncharitably. (I don't wanna get Gell-Mann amnesia'd.) TBD whether this limits what I read too much.