The response was enormously condescending, for reasons I went into at length, so I think the tone was justified. That the response was worded politely doesn't really matter.
> While I'd like to agree with your points about the potential downfalls of therapy, and the troublesome implications of these applied at scale to the perverse incentives of a pro-therapy society, I cannot.
Sorry, but I think being able to separate tone from substance is something pretty fundamental for having discussions you can learn from, so I wouldn't have much to tell you on this score even if I agreed about the tone being too adversarial.
Now I would respect something like "I agree with your points, but please lower the tone". But saying "I can't agree with your points because of your tone" -- come on.
> While I'd like to agree with your points about the potential downfalls of therapy, and the troublesome implications of these applied at scale to the perverse incentives of a pro-therapy society, I cannot.
Sorry, but I think being able to separate tone from substance is something pretty fundamental for having discussions you can learn from, so I wouldn't have much to tell you on this score even if I agreed about the tone being too adversarial.
Now I would respect something like "I agree with your points, but please lower the tone". But saying "I can't agree with your points because of your tone" -- come on.