3 ms·
what do you mean by high-signal and low-content? i don't know about signal and content, but typically the word coercion is used to refer to forcing people to do
by pasquinelli 11y ago
what do you mean by high-signal and low-content? i don't know about signal and content, but typically the word coercion is used to refer to forcing people to do something using violence and the threat of violence.
- Avshalom 11y agoAnd you would think "forcing", "violence" and "the threat of violence" would all be clear. Right up until some one comes along and asserts that it's impossible to force people to do things because they can always choose to die instead. Or some one defines violence as "anything done to me specifically that I don't like at the moment for rhetorical purposes"
- tunesmith 11y agohigh-signal low-content... for example, if you say a term like "gun control" to a collection of people, and every person in the group has a clear idea of what it means, and yet the definition might be different for every person. So, the content of the term has low meaning overall, while as a signal it evokes a strong response.
- aninhumer 11y agoSo, I get what you're saying, but I don't think "signal" is a great term for that, because it comes from information theory, and there its definition more closely matches what you're calling "content". I'm not sure what you could call emotional impact to make a similarly pithy description though.
- tunesmith 11y agoYeah, that's a good point - I have heard "signal" used more in this context in social sciences, like "dog whistle" in politics. But it'd be nice to come up with something clearer and just as pithy.