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.”
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...