A separate but related issue I've sometimes run into in team interactions like those described (particularly in github issue discussions and other asynchronous

A separate but related issue I've sometimes run into in team interactions like those described (particularly in github issue discussions and other asynchronous text communications) is people mistaking kindness or inquiry for passive aggressive demands or mandate. Something like "is there a reason you chose to do it that way instead of this other way that we have done things in the past?" might be interpreted as "This is wrong. Why didn't you do it the way I did it the last time I did something similar to this!? Please throw out what you've done and re-implement it my way." This might have something to do with the assumption that the OP mentions: that everyone is aggressive and blunt by default, and this is just a passive aggressive form of the same. If this wasn't the norm, perhaps this subtlety wouldn't go unnoticed.