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Comment by komali2 | Hacker News Reader

>All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace is a series of films about how this culture itself has been colonised by the machines it has has built. The series explores and connects together some of the myriad ways in which the emergence of cybernetics—a mechanistic perspective of the natural world that particularly emerged in the 1970s along with emerging computer technologies—intersects with various historical events and visa-versa. The series variously details the interplay between the mechanistic perspective and the catastrophic consequences it has in the real world.

This style of writing has always bothered me. I don't know how to describe it. College-writing? Like, "The series variously details the interplay between the mechanistic perspective..." What does this sentence actually mean? Surely there's a more efficient way to write it. At the very least by throwing out useless fluff like "variously."

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This is about as sparse as I can make it:

"AWOBMOLG is a series of films about how the development of computers has impacted human culture. In particular, it examines the computer scientist's mechanistic worldview, and the way that this belief has negatively impacted the world."

But honestly that's pretty dry and it lacks some of the details that the original quotation has. I know what you're talking about w.r.t. overly flowery language, but I don't see this as a blatant example of it. Zizek or Haraway are the first that spring to mind when I think of that problem.

It's basically using poetic flourishes to hide sloppy, simplistic thinking. Just like when the article accuses science of imposing machinery on nature (or something). "Part two shows how the modern scientific perspective of the natural world is actually a fantasy. It has little to do with the reality of nature. It is based on mechanistic ideas that were projected on to the natural world in the 1950s by scientists..."

That's unfortunately par for the course in humanities. Occasionally that kind of language can be used to enhance good ideas but more often used to let artists have their feelings and not investigate further.

I have watched Adam Curtis' documentaries and understand the context of that quote. It's not wrong.

Scientists have models for the natural world that are fantasies. Scientific models intentionally simplify reality in order to be able to analyze them. It is arguable with our current understanding of reality that a perfect model of an aspect of reality will never be possible with quantum uncertainty.

Most of what you've said in your comment is non sequitur, and I suggest you edit it out.

Using simplification to make predictions about reality ≠ "having a fantasy".

The entire mode of operation of science involves being aware that one's approach is less than absolutely accurate. The advance of science certainly debunked vitalist views of nature as some irreducible essence. It's a "common trope" to equate to such debunking into turning nature into a machine but nature itself remains as it is regardless of our ideas.

Disagree. A model is not reality, and is indeed a fantasy. Scientists should be (and usually are) well aware of this.

Importantly, the documentary explores some historical examples of where these models were used to attempt to understand, predict, and shape human behavior. Some might find the use of models in these ways immoral, and in my opinion the documentary does a pretty good job of exploring it.

The linguistic sense of the fantasy is of an idea of dubious value. But you (and the OP) seem to take position that one can use the term for any idea. If we're going to operate that way, I could just as well say that your claim that "A model is not reality, and is indeed a fantasy." is itself a "fantasy".

>Most of what you've said in your comment is non sequitur, and I suggest you edit it out.

I believe this is unnecessarily rude. I appreciated the content of your comment but I feel your mild personal attack devalues it.

Comments like par for the course in humanities [...] often used to let artists have their feelings aren't terribly polite either, freighted as they are with implications of intellectual inferiority.

Since that poster can dish out criticism, I'm sure he can take some in return.

I don't. It wasn't a personal attack. I think he jumps to conclusions that are unwarranted, and I'm asking him to kindly edit them out. In no way did I attack his person.

In the same spirit I perceive that you that telling people to remove comments that you don't agree with reduces my opportunities to read and consider them. Please refrain from doing this.

"I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/02/11

> What does this sentence actually mean?

Exactly what the words say. It's pretty direct and straightforward; “mechanistic perspective” and “catastrophic consequences [...] in the real world” could use illustration by concrete examples, but not in the sentence itself. (The article does appear to detail examples of the former, but not the latter.)

> Surely there's a more efficient way to write it.

Other than dropping “variously”, not really.

Y I can shave of between 5-10 words to make it snappier but after that it begins to lose meaning, and has already lost valuable subtleties. To misquote Einstein, things should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.

It's basically a shibboleth that signifies quality in certain circles, like college humanities, but actually is the opposite.

People in those circles can't say what they mean due to stifling ideological policing and status seeking games (and don't have many interesting thoughts as a consequence), so they all just sit around disguising aborted thoughts as impenetrable wisdom.

'Like, "The series variously details the interplay between the mechanistic perspective..." What does this sentence actually mean?'

I'm not a big fan of this style either, which I think greatly tempts both author and reader to mistake style for substance, but it doesn't help that you've cut the sentence off mid-clause. "The series variously details the interplay between the mechanistic perspective and the catastrophic consequences it has in the real world." can be translated into something a bit more HN-ish as "The series discusses the interactions between machines and their catastrophic real-world consquences through a mechanistic lens."

While subjective, it is at least a sentence that contains real content, in the sense that it can be falsified, or at the very least, sensible arguments raised for and against it. I won't disagree that the style you are reacting against does tend to indicate content-free sentences, though.

It's called art and cultural critic writing.

It is tradecraft language from a different area.

Just like most HN discussions sound utterly alien to outsiders.

Sociology, Philosophy, Economics, CS ... all different trade languages.

Tradecraft from another area? Paul Graham, at least, has his doubts about that: http://www.paulgraham.com/copy.html .

If you have no interest in what's being said, nor anything to say, then we can all agree it's not in your interests to bother with a trade language.

The discussion here is pretty clear evidence that something has been said. You may find it unnecessarily obtuse from a layman's perspective, but so is any legal contract, math textbook, or CS theory article. Trade languages exist for a reason.

"Myriad ways" is still windy pompousness.

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