I was under the impression it was a deliberate decision, as the aphorism of Empedocles goes:
What needs saying needs saying twice
Related is what Horace wrote
It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure
Now in case you didn’t realize I’m going meta, by repeating similar sentiments over and over. So I’ll refer to Professor of Negotiation Strategy Deepak Malhotra who advises would be negotiators:
Don’t leave it to chance that they interpret what you’re saying
Pithy, concise, brief statements lack context. This increases the chances they will be misinterpreted. Consistent misinterpretation is not optimal. You can remedy this, as Eliezer does by repetition, stating the same thing over and over again. You can give multiple examples of the same sentiment with slight variations. Each adds more context and narrows the band of possible interpretations.
This is not a matter of Kolmogorov complexity. The issue isn’t whether it can be compressed and recreated by a theoretically optimal un-compressing machine. The audience is not a theoretically optimal un-compressor.
Have you ever been misinterpreted? How did you deal with it? If you were discussing a topic you thought was extremely important and for which interpretations that veered from your intentions could be very counter-productive, would you try to be as pithy and concise as possible or would you try to minimize and narrow the possible misinterpretations? How would you do that?
I was under the impression it was a deliberate decision, as the aphorism of Empedocles goes:
Related is what Horace wrote
Now in case you didn’t realize I’m going meta, by repeating similar sentiments over and over. So I’ll refer to Professor of Negotiation Strategy Deepak Malhotra who advises would be negotiators:
Pithy, concise, brief statements lack context. This increases the chances they will be misinterpreted. Consistent misinterpretation is not optimal. You can remedy this, as Eliezer does by repetition, stating the same thing over and over again. You can give multiple examples of the same sentiment with slight variations. Each adds more context and narrows the band of possible interpretations.
This is not a matter of Kolmogorov complexity. The issue isn’t whether it can be compressed and recreated by a theoretically optimal un-compressing machine. The audience is not a theoretically optimal un-compressor.
Have you ever been misinterpreted? How did you deal with it? If you were discussing a topic you thought was extremely important and for which interpretations that veered from your intentions could be very counter-productive, would you try to be as pithy and concise as possible or would you try to minimize and narrow the possible misinterpretations? How would you do that?