Formal observations, perhaps seemingly besides the point
You make a lot of very interesting and valid points. I really like that. There’s only the issue that those are so many points at once in one single big post. I used a word counting tool that told me is was 2782 words long. That’s a bit much – but of course really understandable considering your state of mind. Perhaps I might not be bothered by your post being so long, if it didn’t also contain dozens of questions. Do you honestly expect me to answer every single question of yours? And that’s an honest question. I do not know what kind of answer you expect me to write. Do you see some of your questions as rhetorical? If yes, it would be inappropriate for me to answer them. It would help me a lot, if you could send me a list of priorities, which issues I should address first, or in detail, or actually at all. I admit that this may seem to be an unreasonable request in such a loaded situation as this, but perhaps you are open to that. If you think that request isn’t appropriate, feel free to ignore it.
Really, your questions are often good, and I’d like to answer at least to some of them, but there are so many at once. Perhaps, if you give me a month, I could try, but by then most things might already have been settled some way or another. Your post feels to me as if I got 10 pages of questions that I should answer in an exam situation within 90 minutes or so. 
It’s daunting! 
But by reacting in that way, you actually make one point especially clear: This is the kind of reaction that can happen when someone gets offended by something that was written in a rather insensitive way. Even only for demonstrating that single point, your post has a remarkable brilliance of its own! 
Really, you make the costs for acting in provocative, confrontational, and insensitive ways abundantly clear! I have not wished for such an exchange, and you really make me regret what I have written.
I am sorry!
What I’ve done did a great disservice to the atmosphere of this forum, and thanks to you I have become acutely aware of that. I hope you can accept my apologies, @Spirit, even if they come bundled with explanations that might feel insulting on their own. It’s just that I see so much value in pointing out the dynamics in our exchange. 
This exchange is setting a precedent that will allow future readers and members of the Fractal Future Forum to learn and to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
What we can learn from this (directed at everyone)
Some readers may realize that I haven’t argued from a point of empathy, but rather from a point of self-interest. And that might be interesting in its own right. I could have argued that I empathise with Spirit’s situation, and that I sense that Spirit is hurt. That might possibly clash with my general advice to “toughen up”, and might not seem very coherent or believable. So, I’m demonstrating that there are other reasons to care about the feelings of others. Perhaps some may interpret that as insensitive move from me, but I’m willing to pay that price in order to make an important point!
The golden rule is not so great
One might of course argue that one should not do to others what one doesn’t wish upon oneself. That’s the golden rule, but I think that it’s actually a weak ethical guideline and often inappropriate. You might want to consider the possibility (which may contain perhaps more than a grain of truth) that I occasionally communicate in a brash, direct, and criticising way, because I would actually like that others communicate with me in a more brash, direct, and criticising way! Sometimes, I find an atmosphere of careful niceness, politeness, and avoidance of criticism slightly unpleasant. It stops others from telling me the faults they see in me. I mean, they might be wrong in 90% of all cases, but if they are right in the remaining 10%, they are perhaps telling me something I desperately need in order to develop myself further.
However, if I turned this version of the golden rule into a working principle for me, I would impose my own needs, wishes, and desires on a whole community. That might work for some members of the community, but for others it would do a great disservice!
Can enlightened self-interest be any better?
Now it might seem weird that a behaviour that is based on enlightened self-interest would be ethically superior to behaviour based on the golden rule. But that’s just because the golden rule really is way too weak in reality – at least in some cases. I’m not saying that enlightened self-interest is the best ethical basis there is. It’s just that it’s sufficiently good for very many cases – and better than the golden rule in some cases.
The problem with dealing in reckless ways is that it may cause severe consequences to happen. That especially includes consequences that one really hasn’t expected, because one wasn’t smart or thoughtful enough to see them coming! Like Spirit’s post I am replying to now. I did not expect to have to deal with something like that. I really didn’t. I mean, I could try to justify my way of acting in a way that may make it look rational – a priori (in the beginning). But me expressing possibly insulting assumptions publicly was very irrational, a posteriori (in the end). I had other plans for this evening. They got nuked, and it’s my own fault. 
So, a core lesson to learn is:
Be nice to people, or they might react in ways that totally thwart your plans!
Does that seem to egoistic? Perhaps it is, but it’s hard to argue against the effectiveness of appealing to egoistic interests! This is not to say that I was in any way opposed to altruism (or variants thereof). It’s just that applied enlightened egoism is enough to be ethical in a lot of circumstances. Also, enlightened egoism is often a more resilient ground for ethical practice. That’s a practical consideration which often gets ignored in abstract ethical debates.
Last words of this reply
Anyway, I want to set a positive example and terminate my post here, before it becomes too long. It’s slightly above 1000 words now. I hope that’s a length that can be seen as acceptable by most forum readers. I am aware that I didn’t address many of the issues that Spirit has raised. Replies to those are needed, and they will come. But for now, I hope that this reply suffices.
Thank you for your attention. More power to you! 
Anyway, I appreciate diversity, but in the end, if we speak too different languages, our exchanges will be very inefficient, which makes them relatively frustrating.
