From what I understand, technological progress happens exponentially.
vs.
Technological progress happens exponentially.
The difference is the “from what I understand” part. Other examples of such qualifiers include:
It seems to me
My impression is that
I could be wrong, but
Perhaps
Probably
Using such qualifiers may be annoying. It is probably easier and quicker to just skip them. It also might add “fluff” and distract from the main point.
On the other hand, I worry that omitting them would lead to overconfidence. If you say “X is true” enough times instead of “It seems to me that X is true; I’m pretty confident but not super confident”, it seems likely that you’d develop a nontrivial overconfidence in X.
Of course, the answer to “Should we use qualifiers in speech?” is almost certainly, “It depends”. But despite that, it still seems like it’d be pretty useful to figure out what the “default” or “your go-to” should be.
Personally I lean pretty strongly towards using them when doing intellectual things, like here on LessWrong. But in everyday life I lean towards avoiding them, because it goes against norms, is a little awkward, and doesn’t have nearly as big a benefit as when you’re doing intellectual things.
[Question] Should we use qualifiers in speech?
Consider
vs.
The difference is the “from what I understand” part. Other examples of such qualifiers include:
It seems to me
My impression is that
I could be wrong, but
Perhaps
Probably
Using such qualifiers may be annoying. It is probably easier and quicker to just skip them. It also might add “fluff” and distract from the main point.
On the other hand, I worry that omitting them would lead to overconfidence. If you say “X is true” enough times instead of “It seems to me that X is true; I’m pretty confident but not super confident”, it seems likely that you’d develop a nontrivial overconfidence in X.
Of course, the answer to “Should we use qualifiers in speech?” is almost certainly, “It depends”. But despite that, it still seems like it’d be pretty useful to figure out what the “default” or “your go-to” should be.
Personally I lean pretty strongly towards using them when doing intellectual things, like here on LessWrong. But in everyday life I lean towards avoiding them, because it goes against norms, is a little awkward, and doesn’t have nearly as big a benefit as when you’re doing intellectual things.