people talk with so much certainty sometimes. i would say that is the most off-putting thing to me about internet discourse. the matter-of-factness of speech masking what is often at best half-baked hypothesis.

i might do this too sometimes tbh, idk. my instinct is to shield myself with a "i feel like" or an "i think". lmao

mfer & founder at /farcards and /froggies

i agree. in settings where strength and leadership are important, makes sense to convey as such. e.g. at work if trying to execute on something and need to get buy-in from stakeholders.

chirping on the internet though i am not optimizing for that, just trying to see reality clearly/find truth.

in real life, if you don't convey complete certainty people won't follow your lead. "i think" is soft and perceived as weak

yes but truth is not binary, there is a spectrum of confidence level that you might believe something is true. for the purposes of rhetoric though i agree that such qualifiers indicate hedging/weakness

Building /nounspace | Founding Member /atxdao | Creating community and good vibes wherever I go.

yes but truth is not binary, there is a spectrum of confidence level that you might believe something is true. for the purposes of rhetoric though i agree that such qualifiers indicate hedging/weakness

https://warpcast.com/six/0xaa3aff75

If you're saying something is true, you inherently already feel or think that it is true. Including it in your statement makes it seem like you're hedging your bets and reduces the power of your argument/stance.

I think about this too, I usually remove the “I feel” or “i think” because 1. it’s *weaker* and 2. sometimes don’t want to make it about me by using I too much. But ya think it’s a little bit unauthentic. 

Glad you think about this too

i too am guilty

people are more likely to retort if you state things confidently/definitively, but it makes me feel weird sometimes

I am way guilty of using those shields. Only thing I know for sure is that I can’t possibly know everything