They’re disempowering themselves. Describe themselves as a victim of circumstance, powerless and without responsibility. It’s a disempowering narrative. You’re shooting yourself in the foot. In this story that we live, you are casting yourself as an npc.
On the flip side, saying “I can’t” adds authority to your argument. You’re citing an unstoppable force as the root cause of your actions. So it’s a tradeoff that way.
That’s why I love Lemmy. Here you have a higher chance of having nuanced and intelligent conversations with strangers than on any other social media. Written communication still has challenges with nuance and you’ll always have reactionary trolls, but far better odds here.
That’s why when I see posts like, “How do we get more users on the Fediverse? Grow or die!” I tend to chime in to keep their goddamn hands off the last place on the internet where these kinds of genuine interactions with strangers can happen.