It’s to fallback to the jquery.min.js file stored on the same server when the CDN is down or cannot be reached.
It’s essentially saying:
// 1. Try to download and run https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.4/jquery.min.js
// 2. Was jQuery successfully loaded from the CDN? If so, it will be defined:
if (window.jQuery) {
// Yes, it's defined. Good. Nothing more needed.
}
else {
// No, it's not defined. Use my copy:
document.write('<script src="https://stackoverflow.com/assets/js/vendor/jquery.min.js"><\/script>')
}
Read more here and you can find the original code here.
Regarding window.jQuery || document.write(...) that is essentially shorthand for the code above. When defined window.jQuery will be truthy and so the statement on the right hand side of || will not be executed; however, if it’s not defined it will be falsy and the statement on the right hand side of || will be executed.