After rereading the post a few times, I think you are just misunderstanding it?
Like, I can’t make sense of your top-level comment in my current interpretation of the post, and as such I interpreted your comment as asking for clarification in a weirdly hostile tone (which was supported by your first sentence being “What is that sentence supposed to tell me?”). I generally think it’s a bad idea to start substantive criticisms of a post with a rhetorical question that’s hard to distinguish from a genuine question (and probably would advise against rhetorical questions in general, but am less confident of that).
To me the section you quoted seems relatively clear, and makes a pretty straightforwardly true point, and from my current vantage point I fail to understand your criticism of it. I would be happy to try to explain my current interpretation, but would need a bit more help understanding what your current perspective is.
I have written multiple post in this thread and I wouldn’t expect you to make sense of the tone by treating this post in isolation.
In a way it’s true straightforwardly true point to say that apples are significantly different from tomatoes. It’s defensibly true in a certain sense.
At the same time if a reader wants to learn something from the statement and transfer the knowledge to another case, they need to model of what kind of significant difference is implied.
You might read the statement as being about how tomatoes are vegetables purposes for tariff or for cooking purposes and how scientific taxonomy isn’t the only taxonomy that matters but it’s very bailey-and-motte about that issue. The bailey-and-motteness then makes it hard to falsify the claims.
Are you saying people should never casually make such claims about apples and tomatoes? I haven’t tried to parse your comments in detail, apologies if I’m misunderstanding. But they seem to be implying a huge amount of friction on conversation that does not seem practical to me. (i.e. only discuss things if you’re going to take the time to clarify details of your model. The reasons we have clusters and words and shorthand is because that’s a lot of effort that most of the time isn’t worth it)
A model should generally be clear enough to be falsifiable. It might be okay for a paragraph to not expand an idea in enough detail for that but when there’s a >3800 word essay about a model that avoids being falsifiable and instead is full with applause lights I do consider that bad.
After rereading the post a few times, I think you are just misunderstanding it?
Like, I can’t make sense of your top-level comment in my current interpretation of the post, and as such I interpreted your comment as asking for clarification in a weirdly hostile tone (which was supported by your first sentence being “What is that sentence supposed to tell me?”). I generally think it’s a bad idea to start substantive criticisms of a post with a rhetorical question that’s hard to distinguish from a genuine question (and probably would advise against rhetorical questions in general, but am less confident of that).
To me the section you quoted seems relatively clear, and makes a pretty straightforwardly true point, and from my current vantage point I fail to understand your criticism of it. I would be happy to try to explain my current interpretation, but would need a bit more help understanding what your current perspective is.
I have written multiple post in this thread and I wouldn’t expect you to make sense of the tone by treating this post in isolation.
In a way it’s true straightforwardly true point to say that apples are significantly different from tomatoes. It’s defensibly true in a certain sense.
At the same time if a reader wants to learn something from the statement and transfer the knowledge to another case, they need to model of what kind of significant difference is implied.
You might read the statement as being about how tomatoes are vegetables purposes for tariff or for cooking purposes and how scientific taxonomy isn’t the only taxonomy that matters but it’s very bailey-and-motte about that issue. The bailey-and-motteness then makes it hard to falsify the claims.
Are you saying people should never casually make such claims about apples and tomatoes? I haven’t tried to parse your comments in detail, apologies if I’m misunderstanding. But they seem to be implying a huge amount of friction on conversation that does not seem practical to me. (i.e. only discuss things if you’re going to take the time to clarify details of your model. The reasons we have clusters and words and shorthand is because that’s a lot of effort that most of the time isn’t worth it)
A model should generally be clear enough to be falsifiable. It might be okay for a paragraph to not expand an idea in enough detail for that but when there’s a >3800 word essay about a model that avoids being falsifiable and instead is full with applause lights I do consider that bad.