Yeah, legibility = ease of understanding; propensity for someone unfamiliar with something to look at it and comprehend.
Seeing Like A State is about how governments want to simplify and homogenize things to make them more legible, which in turn facilitates state control of the actions of their citizens.
The EA usage seems to focus on understanding in general, without a goal of control, and not necessarily via simplification or homogenization.
Right, the focus here is legibility. Control and homogenization can be related, but are different.
This usage might have been popularized among EA-adjacent people by the Slate Star Codex book review, and trickled to the EA Forum from there.
Interesting, thanks for the explanation! That makes sense.
I do think my main claim still holds: that this usage is pretty unusual and can contribute to confusion, especially with non-EA folks. I’m not saying we should never use it, but I think we should examine when jargon facilitates communication by pointing to something that is not captured by any simpler term, vs when jargon impedes communication by reducing comprehension. At least for me, this usage of “legible” on the Forum initially fell into the latter category. And even now, I’m not sure it falls into the former category (for me personally).
Yeah, legibility = ease of understanding; propensity for someone unfamiliar with something to look at it and comprehend.
Seeing Like A State is about how governments want to simplify and homogenize things to make them more legible, which in turn facilitates state control of the actions of their citizens.
Right, the focus here is legibility. Control and homogenization can be related, but are different.
This usage might have been popularized among EA-adjacent people by the Slate Star Codex book review, and trickled to the EA Forum from there.
Interesting, thanks for the explanation! That makes sense.
I do think my main claim still holds: that this usage is pretty unusual and can contribute to confusion, especially with non-EA folks. I’m not saying we should never use it, but I think we should examine when jargon facilitates communication by pointing to something that is not captured by any simpler term, vs when jargon impedes communication by reducing comprehension. At least for me, this usage of “legible” on the Forum initially fell into the latter category. And even now, I’m not sure it falls into the former category (for me personally).