Oh, come on, you call that saccharine? This is saccharine XD
As for insincerity, it's not that I'm insincere, it's that I'm very profuse in my demonstrations of affection, respect, and so on. The emotion behind is genuine, I'm just very openly demonstrative about it. If the other person has codes where only a much greater favour is deserving of such open displays of positivity, they see the discrepancy and deduce that I am sending false (or exaggerated) signals.
The same is true in reverse. Some people have a norm of violently lashing out at anything they dislike, and, when meeting people who react to offence by silence or by shifting their attention elsewhere, some very unfortunate misunderstandings can happen.
Essentially, it's a misunderstanding.
Thus, if many people behave in that way, I would be forced to choose between being rude and being insincere.
I don't think it's insincere if you contain your attempt at rudeness and yet endeavour to convey your misgivings and negative feelings to the other person clearly and sincerely. To take an exaggeratedly dramatic example, when Iñigo Montoya says "Hello. My name is Iñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Perpare to die.", he's being perfectly sincere. More so, in fact, than if he'd said "YOU FATHER-MURDERING PIECE OF SHIT, I'LL SWORDFUCK YOU TILL YOU LOVE IT!", because it's more precise and accurate. Even though his first impulse might have been to say the latter rather than the former (we know it wasn't, but that's beside the point).
Another cartoony but very nice example of someone very angry still being polite about it, and not in a passive-aggressive or insincere way, but in an open and assertive way, is Finn the Human from Adventure Time. There's plenty of force behind "NO, MAN" or "GET OUT" without having to intercalate "fucking" and "asshole" and so on inbetween.
You misunderstand. If everyone suddenly became over-the-top nice but me, then even if I had no intention of being rude, I would either have to go against the norm or say things I don't mean.
This is my first attempt at starting a casual conversation on LW where people don't have to worry about winning or losing points, and can just relax and have social fun together.
So, Big Bang Theory. That series got me wondering. It seems to be about "geeks", and not the basement-dwelling variety either; they're highly successful and accomplished professionals, each in their own field. One of them has been an astronaut, even. And yet, everything they ever accomplish amounts to absolutely nothing in terms of social recognition or even in terms of personal happiness. And the thing is, it doesn't even get better for their "normal" counterparts, who are just as miserable and petty.
Consider, then; how would being rationalists would affect the characters on this show? The writing of the show relies a lot on laughing at people rather than with them; would rationalist characters subvert that? And how would that rationalist outlook express itself given their personalities? (After all, notice how amazingly different from each other Yudkowsky, Hanson, and Alicorn are, just to name a few; they emphasize rather different things, and take different approaches to both truth-testing and problem-solving).
Note: this discussion does not need to be about rationalism. It can be a casual, normal discussion about the series. Relax and enjoy yourselves.
But the reason I brought up that series is that its characters are excellent examples of high intelligence hampered by immense irrationality. The apex of this is represented by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, who is, essentially, a complete fundamentalist over every single thing in his life; he applies this attitude to everything, right down to people's favorite flavor of pudding: Raj is "axiomatically wrong" to prefer tapioca, because the best pudding is chocolate. Period. This attitude makes him a far, far worse scientist than he thinks, as he refuses to even consider any criticism of his methods or results.