True. But the receiver is just as important to understanding as the communicator. When one does what they should do, any inability to communicate rests with the other.
Cyan, both you and MendelSchmiedekamp are correct in your points, but it might be more useful to stress how Nominull’s behavior fell short of the ideal communication strategy, rather than noting that being right isn’t necessarily useful.
Well, in the long term sense treating the communication as the failure rather than only looking at the reasoning is important here. Because if Nominull approaches the situation (which, admittedly I’ve been unable to locate) in the sense of “I was right, so there’s nothing more to it” then the communication won’t improve.
Being right is only a slim piece of the puzzle, the universe doesn’t care if you were right, nor do other people. What matters is what you say and do, and how you affect the situations around you. Those are very complex systems. And you can always get better at it. So we can all afford to pay attention and learn from what happens, especially when things don’t go quite as expected. The last thing we need is a moment of vindication or victory to rob us of the real rewards of the struggle, better understanding of how to face the next one.
Perhaps Nominull could have added “You may find it obscure, but how can you be so certain it was deliberately so?” But it’s not clear that this was needed in the local communication context with Phil, as his reply doesn’t seem to imply a misunderstanding of that nature.
On the other hand this site also has a pedagogical mission, so there is something to be said for being careful about the outer audience’s understanding.
Good point. Suppose the procedure ought to be something like:
state what (you think) the other person was asserting
show why that specific assertion fails
(optional) name the fallacy
Nominull skipped step 2, which in this case might be, “There’s a difference between something being obscure to you and it being obscure in a general sense. I don’t think “tl;dr” can be considered generally obscure given that the explanation of what it means is the top google hit.”
The “fallacy” alleged here is not the using of acronyms, but your calling it a mind projection fallacy when I said a statement was deliberately obscure.
I was projecting a motivation onto the speaker. That’s bad, but not actually the mind projection fallacy, because it wasn’t my motivation that I was projecting. That was some other error; maybe the “Bad effects are caused by bad people” fallacy. The mind projection part would be me saying, “This statement is not clear to me; therefore, this statement is not clear.”
Is that the mind projection fallacy? Technically, yes. I could have found a more E’-like way of saying that I didn’t know what the acronym meant. But I did at least make it clear that the trouble was that I didn’t know what the acronym meant. It’s enough of a common convention to say “That statement is confusing” when you mean “That statement is confusing to me” that I don’t think we should call it the mind projection fallacy; especially when it is invoked as a justification for ignoring the issue of whether the original statement was confusing.
(I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t very recently puzzled over, and wasted a few minutes googling, what SWPL stood for.)
Saying it was confusing would have been kind of bad; you might argue that it would be shorthand for “I am confused”, but just say “I am confused” and stop attributing mental characteristics to objects in the world already. But you called it “obscure”, and what can that possibly be shorthand for? “I am obscured”? And even more, you said it was “deliberately obscure” which I cannot but interpret as a property of the world, rather than of you, because the deliberation would have had to have taken place within the original poster. There is no possible way your use of the term “obscure” was virtuous.
My point is: do not assume something is obscure because you don’t know of it, and if it really takes you a few minutes to google something, you should get a better web browser.
“Deliberately obscure” means “the speaker (of the reference called “deliberately obscure”) sought out and used a reference that, relative to the speaker’s epistemology, a given member of the audience would be unlikely to understand.”
“Obscure” by itself means that “a member of the audience is unlikely to understand the reference”, where “unlikely” might refer to the epistemology of the speaker of the reference or the one who called it obscure, which may be resolved by context.
So, just because you don’t see how the use of a word could be virtuous, don’t assume that it can’t be.
On the other hand, if you don’t know, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Not every request for clarification has to be an accusation.
Correct—I wonder in what sense this is supposed to be a ‘fallacy’. If anything, it more resembles skipping steps in a proof. Top-level comment to follow.
Most classic fallacies are arguments which can be easily and accidently extended beyond their area of applicability. So they should be used with caution.
For example, if I’m arguing with you not to trust someone’s research paper, ad hominem could be applicable, if I mention previous fraudulent papers, less so the moral stance of the researcher on spousal fidelity.
The point is labeling an argument a fallacy puts that cognitive warning sign on it, which demands that you you go the extra mile and show why this argument is valid in this case. If you fail to do so, you are asking those who don’t currently agree with you to bear the entire burden of proof to substantiate that you are not simply committing a fallacy. Which is at best naive, at worst self-sabotage.
No it is not a fallacy to use abbreviations correctly. I don’t think anyone said it was.
It can be a failure of communication to use even correct abbreviations the audience is not familiar with. And invoking the Mind Projection Fallacy, implicitly pointing out that the ignorance is in the mind of the reader who doesn’t get it, misses the point that the communication failure lies in the failure to account for the probable ignorance of some portion of the audience, and communicate the point anyways by using full English words, which is rightly assigned to the commenter that used the abbreviation.
Of course, I understand that you did not get all that from the phrase “deliberately obscure”, which itself is the sort of vague accusation I think we should avoid. (And I also doubt the obscurity was deliberate.)
I think the fallacy Nominull committed was the assumption that any complaint that something is confusing is committing the Mind Projection Fallacy because the confusion is really in the mind, when really, the complaint is about actual properties of the “confusing” thing that contributed to the confusion in the mind.
Though this is not quite the issue I was talking about in the post. It is more like what PhilGoetz was describing (which is not surprising, as that was a response to Nominull’s comment). That is, Nominull did state how a detail of the fallacy described Phil’s comment, but I think that explanation missed the point.
But I was right, dammit! It’s not a fallacy to use abbreviations if you’re using them correctly.
True. Nevertheless, it’s not very useful to be right if the person who’s wrong can’t get your point.
ETA: As freyley points out, no goal was specified explicitly, so “useful” is ambiguous in the above sentence. Good catch!
That depends on whether you’re making the point for the sake of the person who’s wrong, or other readers.
True. But the receiver is just as important to understanding as the communicator. When one does what they should do, any inability to communicate rests with the other.
Cyan, both you and MendelSchmiedekamp are correct in your points, but it might be more useful to stress how Nominull’s behavior fell short of the ideal communication strategy, rather than noting that being right isn’t necessarily useful.
Well, in the long term sense treating the communication as the failure rather than only looking at the reasoning is important here. Because if Nominull approaches the situation (which, admittedly I’ve been unable to locate) in the sense of “I was right, so there’s nothing more to it” then the communication won’t improve.
Being right is only a slim piece of the puzzle, the universe doesn’t care if you were right, nor do other people. What matters is what you say and do, and how you affect the situations around you. Those are very complex systems. And you can always get better at it. So we can all afford to pay attention and learn from what happens, especially when things don’t go quite as expected. The last thing we need is a moment of vindication or victory to rob us of the real rewards of the struggle, better understanding of how to face the next one.
Or the short version, “Pay attention.”
Here (from the “Inspired by” link in the OP)
Oh, that’s a fairly ambiguous case.
Perhaps Nominull could have added “You may find it obscure, but how can you be so certain it was deliberately so?” But it’s not clear that this was needed in the local communication context with Phil, as his reply doesn’t seem to imply a misunderstanding of that nature.
On the other hand this site also has a pedagogical mission, so there is something to be said for being careful about the outer audience’s understanding.
Good point. Suppose the procedure ought to be something like:
state what (you think) the other person was asserting
show why that specific assertion fails
(optional) name the fallacy
Nominull skipped step 2, which in this case might be, “There’s a difference between something being obscure to you and it being obscure in a general sense. I don’t think “tl;dr” can be considered generally obscure given that the explanation of what it means is the top google hit.”
Good point—I think it should have defused much of the disagreement. You get the definition right on the results page!
ETA: I have no idea whether I meant to say “defused” or “diffused” there. Hmm...
The “fallacy” alleged here is not the using of acronyms, but your calling it a mind projection fallacy when I said a statement was deliberately obscure.
I was projecting a motivation onto the speaker. That’s bad, but not actually the mind projection fallacy, because it wasn’t my motivation that I was projecting. That was some other error; maybe the “Bad effects are caused by bad people” fallacy. The mind projection part would be me saying, “This statement is not clear to me; therefore, this statement is not clear.”
Is that the mind projection fallacy? Technically, yes. I could have found a more E’-like way of saying that I didn’t know what the acronym meant. But I did at least make it clear that the trouble was that I didn’t know what the acronym meant. It’s enough of a common convention to say “That statement is confusing” when you mean “That statement is confusing to me” that I don’t think we should call it the mind projection fallacy; especially when it is invoked as a justification for ignoring the issue of whether the original statement was confusing.
(I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have said anything if I hadn’t very recently puzzled over, and wasted a few minutes googling, what SWPL stood for.)
Saying it was confusing would have been kind of bad; you might argue that it would be shorthand for “I am confused”, but just say “I am confused” and stop attributing mental characteristics to objects in the world already. But you called it “obscure”, and what can that possibly be shorthand for? “I am obscured”? And even more, you said it was “deliberately obscure” which I cannot but interpret as a property of the world, rather than of you, because the deliberation would have had to have taken place within the original poster. There is no possible way your use of the term “obscure” was virtuous.
My point is: do not assume something is obscure because you don’t know of it, and if it really takes you a few minutes to google something, you should get a better web browser.
“Deliberately obscure” means “the speaker (of the reference called “deliberately obscure”) sought out and used a reference that, relative to the speaker’s epistemology, a given member of the audience would be unlikely to understand.”
“Obscure” by itself means that “a member of the audience is unlikely to understand the reference”, where “unlikely” might refer to the epistemology of the speaker of the reference or the one who called it obscure, which may be resolved by context.
So, just because you don’t see how the use of a word could be virtuous, don’t assume that it can’t be.
On the other hand, if you don’t know, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Not every request for clarification has to be an accusation.
Correct—I wonder in what sense this is supposed to be a ‘fallacy’. If anything, it more resembles skipping steps in a proof. Top-level comment to follow.
ETA: link
Most classic fallacies are arguments which can be easily and accidently extended beyond their area of applicability. So they should be used with caution.
For example, if I’m arguing with you not to trust someone’s research paper, ad hominem could be applicable, if I mention previous fraudulent papers, less so the moral stance of the researcher on spousal fidelity.
The point is labeling an argument a fallacy puts that cognitive warning sign on it, which demands that you you go the extra mile and show why this argument is valid in this case. If you fail to do so, you are asking those who don’t currently agree with you to bear the entire burden of proof to substantiate that you are not simply committing a fallacy. Which is at best naive, at worst self-sabotage.
The “fallacy” alleged here is not the using of acronyms.
Being right is a weak defense against failing to communicate that fact.
No it is not a fallacy to use abbreviations correctly. I don’t think anyone said it was.
It can be a failure of communication to use even correct abbreviations the audience is not familiar with. And invoking the Mind Projection Fallacy, implicitly pointing out that the ignorance is in the mind of the reader who doesn’t get it, misses the point that the communication failure lies in the failure to account for the probable ignorance of some portion of the audience, and communicate the point anyways by using full English words, which is rightly assigned to the commenter that used the abbreviation.
Of course, I understand that you did not get all that from the phrase “deliberately obscure”, which itself is the sort of vague accusation I think we should avoid. (And I also doubt the obscurity was deliberate.)
I apologize for using the phrase “deliberately obscure”.
Do you agree that Nominull was right? I got the impression from this that you thought a genuine fallacy had been committed.
I think the fallacy Nominull committed was the assumption that any complaint that something is confusing is committing the Mind Projection Fallacy because the confusion is really in the mind, when really, the complaint is about actual properties of the “confusing” thing that contributed to the confusion in the mind.
Though this is not quite the issue I was talking about in the post. It is more like what PhilGoetz was describing (which is not surprising, as that was a response to Nominull’s comment). That is, Nominull did state how a detail of the fallacy described Phil’s comment, but I think that explanation missed the point.