I think this lesson extends behind the scope of programming, even behind the more general scope of technology. We should not be too humble before complicated, hard-to-understand things. We should not be too quick to assume the fault is in our inability to comprehend them. We should always consider the possibility that it’s their fault being needlessly complicated, or even just plain nonsense.
I’ve seen some essays (often in the area of philosophy and/or religion) that—I believe—try to take advantage of that utility. They support their argument with cryptic, cumbersome and confusing reasoning that seem to me like an attempt to force their would be challengers to give up on the discourse for failing to understand it. Their supporters, of course, can remain—they are not trying to disprove the argument, so they don’t really need to understand it.
To fight this mentality, we need to give more credit to ourselves. Is the person making the argument smarter than us? Maybe. Does their intelligence exceed our own so much that they can create coherent arguments we cannot understand no matter how hard we try? Very unlikely. Maybe not outright impossible, but the probability is low enough that we should insist on the argument being flawed even when they try to convince us we simply fail to understand it.
Yes! This! I wanted to make this point in the OP as well, but couldn’t think of good examples or arguments, so I just stuck to programming. I’d love to see you or someone else expand on it in a separate post though.
I think this lesson extends behind the scope of programming, even behind the more general scope of technology. We should not be too humble before complicated, hard-to-understand things. We should not be too quick to assume the fault is in our inability to comprehend them. We should always consider the possibility that it’s their fault being needlessly complicated, or even just plain nonsense.
I’ve seen some essays (often in the area of philosophy and/or religion) that—I believe—try to take advantage of that utility. They support their argument with cryptic, cumbersome and confusing reasoning that seem to me like an attempt to force their would be challengers to give up on the discourse for failing to understand it. Their supporters, of course, can remain—they are not trying to disprove the argument, so they don’t really need to understand it.
To fight this mentality, we need to give more credit to ourselves. Is the person making the argument smarter than us? Maybe. Does their intelligence exceed our own so much that they can create coherent arguments we cannot understand no matter how hard we try? Very unlikely. Maybe not outright impossible, but the probability is low enough that we should insist on the argument being flawed even when they try to convince us we simply fail to understand it.
Yes! This! I wanted to make this point in the OP as well, but couldn’t think of good examples or arguments, so I just stuck to programming. I’d love to see you or someone else expand on it in a separate post though.
Now that I think about it, Getting Eulered is similar.