If you truly think that's why people write long-form prose then I totally understand your ire towards it -- but unfortunately that idea is so far away from reality that I'm afraid I don't understand at all.
At the risk of being an inaccurate arm-chair psychoanalyst I think that your anger and aggression towards it comes from a fear of missing out. Rather than skipping the things that are written in a style that you disagree with you read them anyway -- upset the entire time that the prose isn't written how you want it to be -- and then vent your frustrations by accusing the author or post writer of machinations that simply do not exist.
No one is worried about your reading skills. I initially had the urge to meet that sarcasm (is it sarcasm? hard to tell) with more of my own ("Oh yeah, you figured it out, that's exactly what the author meant to do") until I considered that perhaps you would misunderstand that as acceptance from peers.
My perspective in a few words : Some things don't compress. Long-form has a place in my life for that reason.
Woosh? That was a tongue-in-cheek reference back to the original Socrates/Plato quote worrying about thinking skills atrophying due to writing.
For someone so married to the idea of being a deep thinker, who rigorously and patiently reads thick prose, you sure missed an obvious reference.
>At the risk of being an inaccurate arm-chair psychoanalyst I think that your anger and aggression
There's no need to psychoanalyze. Cercatrova took ~400 words, most of which were unnecessary, to bring up an idea, and not even make clear what part of the article it was related too. That's a really wasteful form of communication, and I pointed out why, then later on showed a better way to do it.
Most people would appreciate being told how they could communicate an idea better, and if there's someone here with a toxic personality, I would say it's the one who's trying to medicalize it and act like it's some kind of mental illness, rather than a request for common courtesy.
If you want to ascribe a personality trait to me, how about "distaste at people who waste others' time making their ideas obscure through poor communication", and I have to ask -- why don't you have that personality trait as well? Do you not like when others understand your ideas? Are you worried they'll better see the flaws?
And not that the personal attack was warranted, but: I'm happy to read dense material; I'd just like to know if it is worth my time first. By making me read all of the material first before I know what point it's building to, and not knowing the relevant to the article, you've made me take a lot of time just to learn that you were making a point I already agreed with.
Is wasting others' time a virtue, in your mind?
Here is how I would have done the comment:
---
>people worried that the electric push button would make human skills atrophy. They wondered if such devices would seal off the wonders of technology into a black box: “effortless, opaque, and therefore unquestioned by consumers.”
This reminds me of Socrates's story about how people in the ancient world worried about the atrophy from being able to use writing:
>>"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."
Full context (Plato's Phaedrus 14, 274c-275b): https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
---
Advantages:
A) Gets right to the point (so that if you already know the point, you can skip it.)
B) Saves everyone the time and effort of reading thick prose, most of which includes references to historical figures
C) Still quotes the relevant part.
D) Still contains a quick link to the rest of the context that cercatrova considered oh-so-important to add.
E) Contains a citation that can be googled in case the link goes dead.
F) Doesn't take a big wall of text.
But yes, it does have downsides: it G) takes actual communication effort, H) owns a specific point, and I) doesn't make cercatrova look cryptically wise. If those are your desiderata, then yeah, I agree he did it right, and everyone was right to vote it to the top of the discussion.
Can you elaborate on what you think we gain from making everyone read 6x as much with no indication of what the actual point is?
[1] I'm including people who weren't already aware of the quote, though you don't seem to think their vote matters here.
Clear communication is good. You should welcome suggestions for how to communicate better. "Try it sometime", as it were.
Nah. It makes you think, I personally like to practice the art of thinking, of making connections between seemingly unconnected things, like Socrates and push buttons. Try to guess the point of a big comment by a first few sentences. And here I guessed right, that it would be about dangers of writing. But it was easy here, because letters are mentioned in a third sentence with emphasis: "and, most important of all, letters."
> its thick prose > Can you elaborate on what you think we gain from making everyone read 6x as much with no indication of what the actual point is?
I force myself to read thick prose sometimes, it is a way to practice attention and an ability to understand others. Maybe it was the reason why it was easy to me to guess the point of the comment?
But no one is forced to read it. For example, it seems to me you didn't read it through. I didn't read it. I read first few sentences, and skimmed to the end, to ensure that my guess is right.
> Advantages:
You are silently assume that a clarity and the ease of consumption is among of the top priorities. But it may not be so. Didn't you think that a comment about letters can be composed in a thick and hard to comprehend prose on a purpose to make some point about letters (that are supposed to be easy)? And about buttons too (that are supposed to be easy too)? I do not see what this point may be, but it could be because I'm too stupid to see it.
So I guess I can add you to the list of people missing the irony.
There three "technologies" here: writing, push buttons, and clear writing.
In historical context -- because of cercatrova's oh-so clever, unclear comment -- we can laugh at how foolish it was to dismiss writing or push buttons as "causing atrophy".
Now, I'm advocating the third "technology", clear writing, and you're responding exactly like the very same ridiculed people: "Oh no, if people write clearly, then others won't get necessary practice in tolerating crappy prose! I'm a superior person who can parse crappy prose -- don't take that advantage from me!"
> force myself to read thick prose sometimes, it is a way to practice attention and an ability to understand others. Maybe it was the reason why it was easy to me to guess the point of the comment?
So, what, you're saying you're more deserving of knowing the point of the comment than others? That it's good that they didn't get it?
>You are silently assume that a clarity and the ease of consumption is among of the top priorities. But it may not be so. Didn't you think that a comment about letters can be composed in a thick and hard to comprehend prose on a purpose to make some point about letters (that are supposed to be easy)? And about buttons too (that are supposed to be easy too)? I do not see what this point may be, but it could be because I'm too stupid to see it.
Or because the point could have been made explicit, but wasn't. In any case, with this comment, you've indicated you've drunk the koolaid. You're actually defending people making themselves harder to understand than necessary, rather than maturely accepting feedback on how to make your point clearer.
And you are doing it in a response to the obscure prose of Socrates. It shows one more time that Socrats' obscure prose make people think. Cleverer people than me and you read Socrates in a search of novel ideas. And you succeeded.
> and you're responding exactly like the very same ridiculed people: "Oh no, if people write clearly, then others won't get necessary practice in tolerating crappy prose! I'm a superior person who can parse crappy prose -- don't take that advantage from me!"
Yes. Do you think it makes me a bad person? I believe not: I did my best to explain you benefits of my skills and how to acquire them. I'm not so egoistic, I'm ready to share my wisdom with a random person without charging them money.
> Or because the point could have been made explicit, but wasn't.
Had you experience of deciphering such an obscure point? Did you feel the fun it gives? I cannot agree that everyone on every occasion must seek the maximum clarity, it would take away the fun.
> In any case, with this comment, you've indicated you've drunk the koolaid.
Wow. You've almost won. But no. I checked wikipedia and urbandictionary, and I know what you mean by "you've drunk the koolaid". Urbandictionary explains: "Kool-Aid" is what one drinks metaphorically, in the context of a political campaign, when faced with an eminent loss. The term was popularly referenced in the 1993 film, "The War Room" by George Stephonopolous when he states, "I'm afraid we're all going to have to drink Kool-Aid."
My skills of understanding are stronger than your skills of making yourself obscure by using references to a folklore. Though it was a nice attempt to win argument by using a form as a point. I like it, really. Much better than obscure Socrates' prose arguing that letters are easy. I can say even I'm a little frustrated to decipher it, because it would be a really good point, you deserved to win just for being able to use it.
> You're actually defending people making themselves harder to understand than necessary, rather than maturely accepting feedback on how to make your point clearer.
Why do you think they need your feedback? With all we know about them they can be better than you and me combined at making their point clear, but decided on this specific occasion to speak riddles.
Frankly, fully rewriting someone's comment and including a 9-item list of what you think are advantages comes across as more than a little intense.
Maybe it’s just that some of us still have patience - and don’t need things condensed into sound bites or summations for our convenience.
‘Humanity makes first contact. They send out a spaceship to the source. The AI on the ship becomes sentient and murderous. One man escapes, and arrives at the source. He exits his 3 dimensional existence and enters a psychedelic-esque state whereupon he transcends humanity as we know it.’
Okay, now nobody needs to see ‘2001’ again - ever!
Symphonies - what the fuck?
Why couldn’t Mozart have just written a 3 1/2 minute long pop song instead of wasting all of our time?
What an asshole! Yet we celebrate this music as some of the greatest of all time? Shame on us.
Shakespeare? Ugh. They fall in love. Their love isn’t approved. They kill themselves. Get to the point!
You’re totally right. There’s absolutely no reason for us to do anything but compress all information into Tweet-level hyperchunks. :)
What you're advocating here is basically saying that people should never read the description of a movie, or know anything about it, before starting on it, because that's mainly what my edit change. Do you really believe that?
Furthermore, HN isn't a movie. If you're going to take two and half hours to make a point, just don't bother with posting.