You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that if you don’t understand something, it must be because you are dumb, and not because you lack familiarity with community jargon or norms.
For example, take the yudkowsky doompost that’s been much discussed recently. In the first couple of paragraphs, he namedrops people that would be completely unknown outside his specific subfield of work, and expects the reader to know who they are. Then there are a lot of paragraphs like the following:
If nothing else, this kind of harebrained desperation drains off resources from those reality-abiding efforts that might try to do something on the subjectively apparent doomed mainline, and so position themselves better to take advantage of unexpected hope, which is what the surviving possible worlds mostly look like.
It doesn’t matter if you have an oxford degree or not, this will be confusing to anyone who has not been steeped in the jargon and worldview of the rationalist subculture. (My PHD in physics is not helpful at all here)
This isn’t necessarily bad writing, because the piece is deliberately targeted at people who have been talking with this jargon for years. It would be bad writing if it were aimed at the general public though, because they don’t know what these terms mean.
This is similar to scientific fields, when you publish a scientific paper in a specific sub-discipline, a lot of knowledge is assumed. This avoids having to re-explain whole disciplines, but it does make papers incredibly hard to read for anyone that’s even a little bit of an outsider. But when communicating results to the public (or even someone in a different field of physics), you have to translate into reasonably understandable english. I think people here should be mindful of who exactly their audience is, and tailor their language appropriately.
I agree, and reading other comments—I think I may have got a bit down on myself (unnecessarily) for not understanding a lot of the stuff on the forum, as that seems to be pretty common. I guess as this is sort of the ‘main place’ (as far as I’m aware) for EA discussion, this contributed to my feelings of not being ‘smart enough’ to fit in.
You seem to be jumping to the conclusion that if you don’t understand something, it must be because you are dumb, and not because you lack familiarity with community jargon or norms.
For example, take the yudkowsky doompost that’s been much discussed recently. In the first couple of paragraphs, he namedrops people that would be completely unknown outside his specific subfield of work, and expects the reader to know who they are. Then there are a lot of paragraphs like the following:
It doesn’t matter if you have an oxford degree or not, this will be confusing to anyone who has not been steeped in the jargon and worldview of the rationalist subculture. (My PHD in physics is not helpful at all here)
This isn’t necessarily bad writing, because the piece is deliberately targeted at people who have been talking with this jargon for years. It would be bad writing if it were aimed at the general public though, because they don’t know what these terms mean.
This is similar to scientific fields, when you publish a scientific paper in a specific sub-discipline, a lot of knowledge is assumed. This avoids having to re-explain whole disciplines, but it does make papers incredibly hard to read for anyone that’s even a little bit of an outsider. But when communicating results to the public (or even someone in a different field of physics), you have to translate into reasonably understandable english. I think people here should be mindful of who exactly their audience is, and tailor their language appropriately.
I agree, and reading other comments—I think I may have got a bit down on myself (unnecessarily) for not understanding a lot of the stuff on the forum, as that seems to be pretty common. I guess as this is sort of the ‘main place’ (as far as I’m aware) for EA discussion, this contributed to my feelings of not being ‘smart enough’ to fit in.
Second everything here.
Strongly agree!