[not intending to take a substantive position on FarmKind here, probably using some information theory metaphors loosely]
Communication channels have bandwidth constraints. As a result, we have to accept that some loss of fidelity will occur when we try to convey a complicated set of information into a channel that lacks enough bandwidth to carry it without lossy compression. Example: Suppose I am a historian who is given 250 pages to write a history of the United States for non-US schoolchildren. Under most circumstances, the use of lossy compression to make the material fit into the available communication channel is fairly uncontroversial on its own. Someone who objects to the very idea—let’s call this a category-one objection—should perhaps be encouraged to read some of Claude Shannon’s basic works establishing the field of information theory.
But things will get a little more complicated when people see what specific material I omitted or simplified to make the material fit into 250 pages that schoolchildren can understand. Many disagreements would reflect a milder sort of criticism, say that I should have spent less space on the 18th century and more on the 20th. Let’s call that category two. Although these alleged errors in compression reflect substantive decisions on my part, there is no suggestion that they were meant to push any agenda on my part. Maybe I just like 18th century history, or have a purely academic difference of opinion with my critics. In general, the right response here is to acknowledge that differences of opinion happen, just like different reasonable data-compression approaches will reach somewhat different results. My critics are allowed to be unhappy about my choices, but they generally need to keep their criticisms at a low-to-moderate level.
However, some critics might levy heavier, category-three charges against me: that I made content choices and executed simplifications to push an agenda. For example, I could easily select and simplify material for my textbook with the goal of presenting the US as the greatest nation that has ever graced the face of the earth (or with the goal of presenting it as the source of most of the world’s ills). Or I might have done this without consciously realizing it. Here, the problem isn’t really about the need to compress rich data to fit into a narrow channel, and so appeals to channel constraints are not an effective defense. It is about the introduction of significant bias into the output.
And of course the lines are blurry between these three categories (especially the last two).
The hard part is placing various criticisms of FarmKind’s comms into a category. I think the long comment above implicitly places them into categories one and two. In that view, there is some simplification and omission going on, but the resulting message is fair and balanced in light of the communication channel’s constraints. I think some critics would place their criticisms in category three—that the selection and simplification of the material is slanted (intentionally or otherwise) in a way that isn’t close-to-inherent to lossy compression.
The only observation I’ll make on that point is to encourage people to imagine a FarmKind variant that promoted charities toward which one was indifferent (or on hard mode: charities they affirmatively detest). Would they find the material to be a fair summary of the mechanics and different ways to view them? Or would they find DogKind or BadPoliticianKind to be stacking the deck, including predominately positive information and characterizations while burying the less favorable stuff?
[not intending to take a substantive position on FarmKind here, probably using some information theory metaphors loosely]
Communication channels have bandwidth constraints. As a result, we have to accept that some loss of fidelity will occur when we try to convey a complicated set of information into a channel that lacks enough bandwidth to carry it without lossy compression. Example: Suppose I am a historian who is given 250 pages to write a history of the United States for non-US schoolchildren. Under most circumstances, the use of lossy compression to make the material fit into the available communication channel is fairly uncontroversial on its own. Someone who objects to the very idea—let’s call this a category-one objection—should perhaps be encouraged to read some of Claude Shannon’s basic works establishing the field of information theory.
But things will get a little more complicated when people see what specific material I omitted or simplified to make the material fit into 250 pages that schoolchildren can understand. Many disagreements would reflect a milder sort of criticism, say that I should have spent less space on the 18th century and more on the 20th. Let’s call that category two. Although these alleged errors in compression reflect substantive decisions on my part, there is no suggestion that they were meant to push any agenda on my part. Maybe I just like 18th century history, or have a purely academic difference of opinion with my critics. In general, the right response here is to acknowledge that differences of opinion happen, just like different reasonable data-compression approaches will reach somewhat different results. My critics are allowed to be unhappy about my choices, but they generally need to keep their criticisms at a low-to-moderate level.
However, some critics might levy heavier, category-three charges against me: that I made content choices and executed simplifications to push an agenda. For example, I could easily select and simplify material for my textbook with the goal of presenting the US as the greatest nation that has ever graced the face of the earth (or with the goal of presenting it as the source of most of the world’s ills). Or I might have done this without consciously realizing it. Here, the problem isn’t really about the need to compress rich data to fit into a narrow channel, and so appeals to channel constraints are not an effective defense. It is about the introduction of significant bias into the output.
And of course the lines are blurry between these three categories (especially the last two).
The hard part is placing various criticisms of FarmKind’s comms into a category. I think the long comment above implicitly places them into categories one and two. In that view, there is some simplification and omission going on, but the resulting message is fair and balanced in light of the communication channel’s constraints. I think some critics would place their criticisms in category three—that the selection and simplification of the material is slanted (intentionally or otherwise) in a way that isn’t close-to-inherent to lossy compression.
The only observation I’ll make on that point is to encourage people to imagine a FarmKind variant that promoted charities toward which one was indifferent (or on hard mode: charities they affirmatively detest). Would they find the material to be a fair summary of the mechanics and different ways to view them? Or would they find DogKind or BadPoliticianKind to be stacking the deck, including predominately positive information and characterizations while burying the less favorable stuff?