You know, in some ways, that does sound like me, and in some ways it really still doesn't. Let me first of all congratulate you on being able to alter your style so much. I envy that skill.

What I'm saying is that most people who write a Less Wrong comment aren't totally stressing out about all the tradeoffs that inevitably have to be made in order to say anything at all.

Your use of "totally" is not the same as my use of "totally"; I think it sounds stupid (personal preference), so if I said it, I would be likely to backspace and write something else. Other than that, I might say something similar.

There's a famous quote whose gist is 'I apologize that this letter is so long, but I didn't have very much time to write it'.

I would have said " that goes something like" instead of "whose gist is", but that's the sort of concept I might well have communicated in roughly the manner I would have communicated it.

The audience has some large and unknown set of constraints on what they're willing to glance at, read, take seriously, and so on, and the writer has to put a lot of work into meeting those constraints as effectively as possible. Some tradeoffs are easy to make: yes, a long paragraph is a self-contained stucture, but that's less important than readibility. Others are a little harder: do I give a drawn-out concrete example of my point, or would that egregiously inflate the length of my comment?

An interesting point, and MUCH easier to understand than your original comment in your own style. This conveys the information more clearly.

There are also the author's internal constraints re what they feel they need to say, what they're willing to say, what they're willing to say without thinking carefully about whether or not it's a good idea to say, how much effort they can put into rewriting sentences or linking to relevant papers while their heart's pumping as if the house is burning down, vague fears of vague consequences, and so on and so forth for as long as the author's neuroticism or sense of morality allows.

This has become a run-on sentence. It started like something I would say, but by the end, the sentence is too run-on to be my style. I also don't use the word "neuroticism". It's funny, but I just don't. I also try to avoid the word "nostrils" for no good reason. In fact, I'm disturbed by having said it as an example of another word I don't use.

However, this is a LOT closer to my style than your normal writing is. I'm impressed. You're also much more coherent and interesting this way.

People who are abnormally reflective soon run into meta-level constraints:

I would probably say "exceptionally" or something else other than "abnormally". I don't avoid it like "nostrils" or just fail to think of it like "neuroticism", but I don't really use that word much. Sometimes I do, but not very often.

what does it say about me that I stress out this much at the prospect of being discredited?

Huh, that's an interesting thought.

By meeting these constraints am I supporting the proliferation of a norm that isn't as good as it would be if I met some other, more psychologically feasible set of constraints?

Certainly something I've considered. Sometimes in writing or speech, but also in other areas of my life.

Obviously the pragmatic thing to do is to "just go with it", but "just going with it" seems to have led to horrifying consequences in the past; why do I expect it to go differently this time?

I might have said this, except that I wouldn't have said the first part because I don't consider that obvious (or even necessarily true), and I would probably have said "horrific" rather than "horrifying". I might even have said "bad" rather than either.

In the end the author is bound to become self-defeating,

I would probably have said that "many authors become self-defeating" instead of phrasing it this way.

dynamically inconsistent

Two words I've never strung together in my life. This is pure Will. You're good, but not quite perfect at impersonating me.

They'll like as not end up loathing their audience for inadvertently but non-apologetically putting them in such a stressful situation, then loathing themselves for loathing their audience when obviously it's not the audience's fault.

Huh, interesting. Not quite what I might have said.

The end result is a stressful situation where the audience wants to tell the author to do something very obvious, like not stress out about meeting all the constraints they think are important.

...Why don't they? Seriously, I dunno if people are usually aware of how uncomfortable they make others.

Unfortunately if you've already tied yourself up in knots you don't generally have a hand available with which to untie them.

I'm afraid I don't understand.

ETA: On the positive side they'll also build a mega-meta-FAI just to escape all these ridiculous double binds. "Ha ha ha, take that, audience! I gave you everything you wanted! Can't complain now!"

And I wouldn't have said this because I don't understand it.

And yet, your g-grandparent comment, about which EY was asking, was brief... which suggests that the process you describe here isn't always dominant.

Although when asked a question about it, instead of either choosing or refusing to answer the question, you chose to back all the way up and articulate the constraints that underlie the comment.

Have you looked into and/or attempted methods of lowering your anxiety?