I'm thinking they were trying to avoid downvotes from people who think conceiving of a way someone might have a particular point of view is essentially an endorsement of that point of view.

Do you lack so much empathy that you can't even put into words your perception of another person's malicious or pathological reasoning? Or do you just assume to get into their mind is to share it?

I don't think vmception is necessarily someone who thinks that way, I read it as someone relatively cynical and finding the note superfluous and unnecessary. So the did it work read as being sarcastic to me, but not because he thought downvotes were deserved.