I love this post. It is so hard to communicate that the 2nd moment of a distribution (how much any person or thing tends to differ from the average[1]) is often important enough that what is true on average often doesn’t apply very well to any individual (and platitudes that are technically false can therefore often be directionally correct in EA/LessWrong circles).
Some of my personal thoughts on jargon and why I chose, pretty insensitively given the context of this post, to use some anyway
I used the “second moment of a distribution” jargon here initially (without the definition that I later edited in) because I feel like sometimes people talk past each other. I wanted to say what I meant in a way that could be understood more by people who might not be sure exactly what everyone else precisely meant. Plain English sometimes lacks precision for the sake of being inclusive (inclusivity that I personally think is incredibly valuable, not just in the context of this post). And often precision is totally unnecessary to get across the key idea.
However, when you say something in language that is a little less precise, it naturally has more room for different interpretations. Some interpretations readers might agree with and some they might not. The reason jargon tends to exist is because it is really precise. I was trying to find a really precise way of saying the vibe of what many other people were saying so everyone all felt a tiny bit more on the same page (no idea if I succeeded though or if it was actually worth it or if it was actually even needed and whether this is all actually just in my head).
For what it’s worth, I think the term “variance” is much more accessible than “second moment”.
Variance is a relatively common word. I think in many cases we can be more inclusive without losing precision (another example is “how much I’m sure of this” vs “epistemic status”)
I think in hindsight I might literally have been subconsciously indicating in-groupness (“indicating in-groupness” means trying to show I fit in 🤮 -- feels so much worse in plain English for a reason, jargon is more precise but still often less obvious what is meant, so it’s often easier to hide behind it) because my dumb brain likes for people to think I’m smarter than I am.
In my defense, it’s so easy to, in the moment, to use the first way of expressing what I mean that comes to mind.
I am sure that I am more likely to think of technical ways of expressing myself because technical language makes a person sound smart and sounding smart gets socially rewarded.
I so strongly reflectively disagree with this impulse but the tribal instinct to fit in really is so strong (in every human being) and really hard to notice in the moment.
I think it takes much more brain power to find the precise and accessible way to say something so, ironically, more technical language often means the opposite of the impression it gives.
This whole thing reminds me of the Richard Feymann take that if you can’t explain something in language everyone can understand, that’s probably because you don’t understand it well enough. I think that we, as a community, would be better off if we managed to get good at rewarding more precise and accessible language and better at punishing unnecessary uses of jargon (like here!!!).[1]
I kind of love the irony of me having clearly done something that I think is a pretty perfect example of exactly what I, when I reflect, believe we need to do a whole lot less of as a community🤣
I think it’s also good to be nice on the forum and I think Lorenzo nailed this balance perfectly. Their comment was friendly and kind, with a suggested replacement term, but still made me feel like using unnecessary jargon was a bad thing (making using unnecessary jargon feel like something I shouldn’t have done which will likely make my subconscious less likely to instinctively want to use unnecessary jargon in the future👌).
It’s just my general feeling on the forum recently that a few different groups of people are talking past each other sometimes and all saying valuable true things (but still, as always, people generally are good at finding common ground which is something I love about the EA community).
Really, I just really want everyone reading to understand where everyone else is coming from. This vaguely makes me want to be more precise when other people are saying the same thing in plain English. It also makes me want to optimise for accessibility when everyone else is saying something in technical jargon that is an idea that more people could get value from understanding.
Ideally I’d be a good enough at writing to be precise and accessible at the same time though (but both precision and making comments easier to understand for a broader group of readers is so time consuming so I often try to either do one or the other and sometimes I’m terrible and make a quick comment that is definitely neither 🤣).
Another relevant Slate Star Codex post is Against Individual IQ Worries.
I love this post. It is so hard to communicate that the 2nd moment of a distribution (how much any person or thing tends to differ from the average[1]) is often important enough that what is true on average often doesn’t apply very well to any individual (and platitudes that are technically false can therefore often be directionally correct in EA/LessWrong circles).
This definition was edited in because I only thought of an okay definition ages later.
Some of my personal thoughts on jargon and why I chose, pretty insensitively given the context of this post, to use some anyway
I used the “second moment of a distribution” jargon here initially (without the definition that I later edited in) because I feel like sometimes people talk past each other. I wanted to say what I meant in a way that could be understood more by people who might not be sure exactly what everyone else precisely meant. Plain English sometimes lacks precision for the sake of being inclusive (inclusivity that I personally think is incredibly valuable, not just in the context of this post). And often precision is totally unnecessary to get across the key idea.
However, when you say something in language that is a little less precise, it naturally has more room for different interpretations. Some interpretations readers might agree with and some they might not. The reason jargon tends to exist is because it is really precise. I was trying to find a really precise way of saying the vibe of what many other people were saying so everyone all felt a tiny bit more on the same page (no idea if I succeeded though or if it was actually worth it or if it was actually even needed and whether this is all actually just in my head).
For what it’s worth, I think the term “variance” is much more accessible than “second moment”.
Variance is a relatively common word. I think in many cases we can be more inclusive without losing precision (another example is “how much I’m sure of this” vs “epistemic status”)
lol, yeah, totally agree (strong upvoted).
I think in hindsight I might literally have been subconsciously indicating in-groupness (“indicating in-groupness” means trying to show I fit in 🤮 -- feels so much worse in plain English for a reason, jargon is more precise but still often less obvious what is meant, so it’s often easier to hide behind it) because my dumb brain likes for people to think I’m smarter than I am.
In my defense, it’s so easy to, in the moment, to use the first way of expressing what I mean that comes to mind.
I am sure that I am more likely to think of technical ways of expressing myself because technical language makes a person sound smart and sounding smart gets socially rewarded.
I so strongly reflectively disagree with this impulse but the tribal instinct to fit in really is so strong (in every human being) and really hard to notice in the moment.
I think it takes much more brain power to find the precise and accessible way to say something so, ironically, more technical language often means the opposite of the impression it gives.
This whole thing reminds me of the Richard Feymann take that if you can’t explain something in language everyone can understand, that’s probably because you don’t understand it well enough. I think that we, as a community, would be better off if we managed to get good at rewarding more precise and accessible language and better at punishing unnecessary uses of jargon (like here!!!).[1]
I kind of love the irony of me having clearly done something that I think is a pretty perfect example of exactly what I, when I reflect, believe we need to do a whole lot less of as a community🤣
I think it’s also good to be nice on the forum and I think Lorenzo nailed this balance perfectly. Their comment was friendly and kind, with a suggested replacement term, but still made me feel like using unnecessary jargon was a bad thing (making using unnecessary jargon feel like something I shouldn’t have done which will likely make my subconscious less likely to instinctively want to use unnecessary jargon in the future👌).
It’s just my general feeling on the forum recently that a few different groups of people are talking past each other sometimes and all saying valuable true things (but still, as always, people generally are good at finding common ground which is something I love about the EA community).
Really, I just really want everyone reading to understand where everyone else is coming from. This vaguely makes me want to be more precise when other people are saying the same thing in plain English. It also makes me want to optimise for accessibility when everyone else is saying something in technical jargon that is an idea that more people could get value from understanding.
Ideally I’d be a good enough at writing to be precise and accessible at the same time though (but both precision and making comments easier to understand for a broader group of readers is so time consuming so I often try to either do one or the other and sometimes I’m terrible and make a quick comment that is definitely neither 🤣).