my theory about myself:

I don't think people will believe me if they recognize my views as the typical LW-cluster views. They'll just dismiss them.

Which is really rational of them, actually. I think I use the same heuristic. Once I see that someone's beliefs come from a political affiliation, they're weaker evidence to me.

Like... if someone's trying to convince me out of global warming, but then I learn that she's also against affirmative action and immigration and regulation on finance. At first I might have thought she read convincing scientific arguments, now I think she's just a Mark Levin-cluster Republican.

See, now I can explain why she has those ideas without the hypothesis that she knows anything I don't about climate science. And if people recognize me as part of the LW cluster, they can explain my beliefs about cryonics without supposing I know anything more about cryonics than they do.

It's a good heuristic, and it's based on how political affiliations really work. I dodge it with a self-conscious, non-culty image.