[ifyoubuildit]

That's one interpretation, but I don't think a particularly charitable one.

My own read on that would be this: the explicit purpose is to discuss something that has emotional/tribal baggage associated with it (which makes it hard for people to think rationally) by distilling out the actual meat of the issue without the baggage.

I think its important to be critical of things, but I see a tendency for people to constantly be looking for the enemy in conversations online. Everyone has their weapons raised. Everything has to be labeled and sorted into it's own little box (the terms "disingenuous" and "bad faith" seem to have exploded in use for example). That's what I see in your reference to dog whistles. Do you think pg is advocating dog whistling?