“Clarity” means something like “information is being processed in a way that is obvious to all parties.” For example, people are able to ask about what state each other are in, and either receive a true answer or a refusal to provide this information. When things aren’t fine, this quickly becomes obvious to everyone. And so on.
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In general clarity is good for enabling positive-sum interactions, and highly situational in situations with a substantial adversarial/zero-sum element.
I see, thanks.
This is not how I would normally use the word “clarity” (which is why I said “it does no such thing” in response to your claim that the norm in question “optimizes against clarity”). That having been said, your usage is not terribly unreasonable, so I will not quibble with it. So, taking “clarity” to mean what you described…
… I consider this sort of “clarity” to not be clearly desirable, even totally ignoring the sorts of “adversarial/zero-sum” situations you allude to. (In fact, it seems to me that a naive, unreflective dedication to “clarity” of this sort is particularly harmful in many categories of potentially-positive-sum interactions!)
This is a topic which has been much-discussed in the rationalist meme-sphere (and beyond, of course!) over the last decade; I confess to being surprised that you appear to be unaware of what’s been said on the subject. (Or are you aware of it, but merely disagree with it all? But then it seems to me that you would, at least, not have been at all surprised by any of my comments…) I do not, at the moment, have the time to hunt for links to relevant writings, but I will try to make some time in the near future.
I see, thanks.
This is not how I would normally use the word “clarity” (which is why I said “it does no such thing” in response to your claim that the norm in question “optimizes against clarity”). That having been said, your usage is not terribly unreasonable, so I will not quibble with it. So, taking “clarity” to mean what you described…
… I consider this sort of “clarity” to not be clearly desirable, even totally ignoring the sorts of “adversarial/zero-sum” situations you allude to. (In fact, it seems to me that a naive, unreflective dedication to “clarity” of this sort is particularly harmful in many categories of potentially-positive-sum interactions!)
This is a topic which has been much-discussed in the rationalist meme-sphere (and beyond, of course!) over the last decade; I confess to being surprised that you appear to be unaware of what’s been said on the subject. (Or are you aware of it, but merely disagree with it all? But then it seems to me that you would, at least, not have been at all surprised by any of my comments…) I do not, at the moment, have the time to hunt for links to relevant writings, but I will try to make some time in the near future.