I remembering seeing this with a Swedish SocDem politician, many years ago.
She was pretty well educated, academically sound background, married to a competent academic, and then she wrote an article that was completely unsound. One can have different positions, but you don't suddenly reason badly because you change your mind.
She became a top name either soon before or after this.
This is a different thing than what the article talks about though, there's nothing wrong, after all, with precise language; unsound thinking and arguments aren't the same as this claimed increase in complexity but I think parties often force people to take views that make no sense and then a person without integrity agrees and becomes a 'leader'.
Walter White gave us "This is science, Jesse. We must be exact or we might just as well be in philosophy class."
There's an essay on fuzzy big picture culture versus detail culture; it comes down to a difference between narrative word-based comprehension versus web-of-facts, logic, and mathematical thinking.
https://www.someweekendreading.blog/math-illiterate-rulers/
PaulHoule · 15h ago
There's a "worse is better" thing in software where things that are intellectually incoherent but workable beat out things that are coherent but too complicated. See this discussion:
A person who is capable of high-quality thinking might just find that low-quality thinking sells better. Look at how many people think Joe Rogan and Eliezer Yudkowsky are the great public intellectuals of our age. (Actually if I was still smoking I'd probably enjoy smoking a joint with the former -- the latter wouldn't let me get within 100 miles because I'd give him no quarter)
vannevar · 18h ago
People can prefer simplicity all they want, but the actual world they live in is complex, and no amount of pretending will change that.
bell-cot · 19h ago
I wonder how much of this is caused by journalists and the internet picking apart every tiny thing that powerful politicians say? Nobody wastes their time doing that to the irrelevant and weak.
giardini · 19h ago
When Biden was at his peak, his language was garbled.
When Biden was at his low, his language was garbled.
Why don't we re-label this thread "Politicians' language is garbled." and get it all over with?
She was pretty well educated, academically sound background, married to a competent academic, and then she wrote an article that was completely unsound. One can have different positions, but you don't suddenly reason badly because you change your mind.
She became a top name either soon before or after this.
This is a different thing than what the article talks about though, there's nothing wrong, after all, with precise language; unsound thinking and arguments aren't the same as this claimed increase in complexity but I think parties often force people to take views that make no sense and then a person without integrity agrees and becomes a 'leader'.
Walter White gave us "This is science, Jesse. We must be exact or we might just as well be in philosophy class."
There's an essay on fuzzy big picture culture versus detail culture; it comes down to a difference between narrative word-based comprehension versus web-of-facts, logic, and mathematical thinking. https://www.someweekendreading.blog/math-illiterate-rulers/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44507076
A person who is capable of high-quality thinking might just find that low-quality thinking sells better. Look at how many people think Joe Rogan and Eliezer Yudkowsky are the great public intellectuals of our age. (Actually if I was still smoking I'd probably enjoy smoking a joint with the former -- the latter wouldn't let me get within 100 miles because I'd give him no quarter)
When Biden was at his low, his language was garbled.
Why don't we re-label this thread "Politicians' language is garbled." and get it all over with?