"That being said, I don't consider it unreasonable to not believe that collapse is likely to happen by 2030, so please, don't feel attacked by my beliefs."
Triple negative? Quadruple negative? (If we count the second "don't".)
Compare something like:
"I consider it reasonable to believe that collapse is unlikely to happen by 2030, so please, don't feel attacked by my beliefs."
It is almost as if the grammatical structure reflects the life perspective of the author.
I don't really want to participate in developing this silly argument, but people making such comments should always consider the possibility that there is a reason for somebody to say things the way they do, and that your "simplification" in fact loses the point of what author is trying to say.
So let me translate for you.
He doesn't "consider it reasonable to believe that collapse is unlikely to happen by 2030", in fact he believes that given the importance of the matter, he is better to assume the scenario, in which his project will turn out to be life-saving. But if it doesn't seem likely to you, that collapse will happen before 2030, and you don't believe the evidence supporting that claim, he wouldn't call you silly (unreasonable) for that, so we (he and you) can work on the project together even if our forecasts are different, don't worry about that too much.
This is the perfect comment - pedantic, snarky, and more focused on the superficial features of the article than the content, mixed in with some grammatical pseudo-psychology. Check, check, check, and check! This is peak tediousness. Well done!
There's a difference between "x is not negative" and "x is positive" (¬(x < 0) ⇏ (x > 0)). Why shouldn't a similar subtlety (or a larger one) exist in prosaic language?
Yes, and 2 is not negative, and 3 is not negative, and 4 is not negative, etc.
That is the point. This style of communication is indirect and ambiguous. This is just negative followed by negative followed by negative, etc.
Just say what you mean. In the affirmative. Overuse of negatives is the functional equivalent of "spaghetti code" in written communication. Not easy to follow.
Anyway, some readers missed the point of the comment. It is not every day that one sees so many negatives in one sentence. Most however got the point, and the commenter who crafted a version of the sentence with even more negatives I thought was hilarious.
“not unreasonable” expands to “You could provide reasons that seem valid, even if I don't agree that they support your conclusion.”
“reasonable” expands to something more like “The reasons you have provided support your conclusion.”
“reasonable” can work in this case, but it doesn't state as clearly that the speaker disagrees with your conclusions.
In a more general sense the “not un-” pattern is a marker for something that is qualitatively similar to the corresponding simple positive attribute (e.g. “reasonable” or “popular”) but not to the extent of the category of things fitting that simple positive attribute. That is, category “reasonable” is a strict subset of category “not unreasonable”.
The point of the comment was not questioning the meaning of the sentence. The phrase "not unreasonable" is quite common. With some effort, we can decpher the meaning. The point was that there are other ways to express that meaning, using fewer negatives.
For example, something like this:
"I don't consider it unreasonable to believe that supply chains will survive to 2030, so please, don't feel attacked by my beliefs."
"That being said, I don't consider it unreasonable to not believe that collapse is likely to happen by 2030, so please, don't feel attacked by my beliefs."
Triple negative? Quadruple negative? (If we count the second "don't".)
Compare something like:
"I consider it reasonable to believe that collapse is unlikely to happen by 2030, so please, don't feel attacked by my beliefs."
It is almost as if the grammatical structure reflects the life perspective of the author.