There's a lot to be said for the benefits of dialectic, but there's also a time and a place for it and the participants need to be on the same page and not threatened by it. You shouldn't take the "I'd just like to know what's so silly about race science of Aryanism" position with a Jewish person, for example, because they're going to interpret it as a death threat.

Less importantly (but still a matter of social grace) you need to know whether your interlocutor gets this all the time. Failing to do basic research will get your question closed on stackoverflow; engaging in dialectic to go over "settled" questions again and again is frustrating, and many of the people on the other side have got fed up with insincere timewasters.

> It is possible to be intellectually curious and also not a tankie.

To me those are mutually exclusive - "tankies" (and many other ideological factions) are people who've become tidally locked to a position and are no longer intellectually curious, but only interested in shooting down other ideological positions.