Jessica said that there's no point in getting mad at [MOPs](http://benjaminrosshoffman.com/construction-beacons/). I said I was a _little_ bit mad, because I specialized in discourse strategies that were susceptible to getting trolled like this. I thought it was ironic that this happened on a post that was explicitly about causal _vs._ social reality; it's possible that I wouldn't have been such a hardass about "whether or not I respect you is off-topic" if it weren't for that prompt.
+(On reviewing the present post prior to publication, Ruby writes that he regrets his behavior during this exchange.)
+
Jessica ended up writing a post, ["Self-Consciousness Wants Everything to Be About Itself"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/bwkZD6uskCQBJDCeC/self-consciousness-wants-to-make-everything-about-itself), arguing that tone arguments are mainly about people silencing discussion of actual problems in order to protect their feelings. She used as a central example a case study of a college official crying and saying that she "felt attacked" in response to complaints about her office being insufficiently supportive of a racial community.
Jessica was surprised by how well it worked, judging by [Ruby mentioning silencing in a subsequent apology to me](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/xqAnKW46FqzPLnGmH/causal-reality-vs-social-reality/comment/wfzxj4GGRtZGMG9ni) (plausibly influenced by Jessica's post) and by [an exchange between Ray and Ruby that she thought was "surprisingly okay"](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/bwkZD6uskCQBJDCeC/self-consciousness-wants-to-make-everything-about-itself/comment/EW3Mom9qfoggfBicf).