Right...ad hominems do not literally negate other points that are in fact thoughtful and relevant. And as for your motivations, to the extent that you stick to legitimate arguments, I can indeed believe your motive is to "get to a deeper critical understanding". But to the extent that you use ad hominems and straw men, you must understand that I do have to take seriously the possibility that you might actually instead have the motivations of a troll - which forces me to guard my time responding to you.

So to the extend you come off as a troll (e.g. with ad hominems and straw men), your comments are quite literally at odds with your stated goal of facilitating critical thinking. It's not just optics. I truly am not concerned with optics per se, so you really are just preaching to the choir with this point you're trying to make. Just stick to the arguments, and this conversation will go a lot better.

All that said, I've just responded to one of your other comments to try and get the ball rolling on an actual conversation about morality (rather than a conversation about how to have a conversation).