> I think suppressing your own emotional response is not as good as reasoning out your emotional response.

The first does not preclude the second. You still know what you wanted to say, and can examine that to your heart's content.

> It invites people to be more careless with their empathy. And that, I think, encourages the neglect of an important mode of communication.

Keep in mind the norm is not Crocker's rules. I'm not sure worrying that we are missing out on the norm when we occasionally opt for different rules of communication explicitly is something we need to be worried about.

> In a private conversation, invoking Crocker's rules, still, I think is not the best option. I think the best option is to have a conversation where emotional processing is intentional and guided.

Crocker's rules do not prevent emotional processing. We are not machines, capable of completely detaching all emotional interpretation. We can at best suppress our reactions, and not fault the other party for bringing up the argument.

> Even when evaluating technical problems, feelings and intuition are so helpful.

Yes, but they can also cloud rational discussion of why. Crocker's rules can help here as well, by helping you explore possible reasons for your intuition without that intuition getting in the way. Intuituin is good, but is necessarily less useful than the data that has formed that intuition in your mind. If you can access that data and how it formed your intuition, that's useful (but may not always be possible). Intuition is like a rule-of-thumb. Quick and useful when applied correctly, but detrimental when applied incorrectly.

> My core misgiving is that I think Crocker's rules are motivated by this assumption that a lack of empathy leads to a broader, more constructive conversation.

Lack of empathy may allow you to consider viewpoints you would have dismissed out of hand, and under careful observation you may find some of those viewpoints are not quite what you assumed they were. It's a way to get past your gut reactions and intuitions just in case you find they were misfiring. Nobody is proposing you don't then reconsider what was discussed with all your emotional faculties to determine if there are additional constraints that still discourage the arguments proposed. Crocker's rules are not a way to make a decision, but a tool for widening perspective and information.

As a simple example of Crocker's rules and where it might find use in a less extreme way, imagine a discussion regarding how to deal with social welfare in an extremely fiscally conservative group. Crocker's rules might by useful in bringing in the subject of a basic income without the emotional baggage of people's preconceptions on the idea, and allow them to examine it with a more rational eye. Conversely, the idea of eliminating corporate taxes might be usefully examined in a very fiscally liberal group under Crocker's rules. Depending on the dispositions of the groups involved, I could easily see both of those devolving into base political arguments before useful discourse could be reached.

I agree that if all communication was done under Crocker's rules, we might lose something important. I just don't think anyone has actually proposed that.