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A lawyer wouldn't have to hedge and say "IANAL." Why would we expect Torvalds to hedge? He's the expert in change of his project. Etc..

• komali2 8y ago
  A lawyer can be wrong, and so can Torvalds, but yea, they may be more likely to be wrong. Nobody has to, but in my experience, you do seem to get a much more positive reaction when you do. At least in Western culture, it seems a well played "humble" character is admirable, especially when it is known that the particular person has absolutely no reason to be humble. EDIT: I don't expect anybody to hedge "just because", but I expect that a person with extremely good interpersonal communication skills to hedge.
  • auslander 8y ago
    In small talk, yes, be polite and humble everywhere. In science and engineering, I prefer it has some meaning. If you're sure in what you're saying, have data to back it up, dealt with it before - say straight. If it's a guess, say it is a guess. So I would not spend time guessing was it politeness of lack of facts behind that hedging. Btw, I upvoted GP :)
• anarazel 8y ago
  Sure, but a lawyer / Torvalds / any SME might want to hedge that their opinion is strong or not. There's a pretty darn big difference between "my gut feeling is that this approach is too complicated, but I've not analyzed the problem sufficiently to know whether my gut is correct" and "there's no way this is the right architecture, it'll have harmful impact, and there's lots of better ways to do it". It's imo especially important to do so from positions of authority where others might be less critical in accepting ones statements as truth.