I think it comes from their culture "growing up" in hostile parts of the internet (twitter, Reddit, HN, etc) and so having to hedge every statement with excruciating delineation of edge cases and precise scoping lest some sneering POS leave drive by comments that twist their words into some straw man that the local majority will be against.

Basically it's a defense mechanism against adversarial HN commenter type behavior that's been cargo culted a couple times over and doesn't actually service it's original purpose anymore and is just a group signaling mechanism.

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BoxOfRain 15 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not being funny, but how do you expect to find a receptive audience for your belief system when you apparently write off a variety of audiences as 'sneering POSs' who are out to get you from the start?

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ModernMech 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Tbf the people who are against rationalists describe themselves as sneering. See r/sneerclub

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cucumber3732842 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

First off, it's not my belief system. I'm not a rationalist.

Second off, I didn't call the whole audience "sneering POS's". I only implied it. Regardless of whether they're 5% or 50% those types are sufficiently plentiful in the comments, here and elsewhere, such that anyone posting stuff that's against the grain will be quickly predated upon by them unless their take is hedged in a nearly airtight manner.

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