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This is why I read the comments first, just avoided another painful article. Do people who communicate in spin-speak start to think that way on the inside too

This is why I read the comments first, just avoided another painful article. Do people who communicate in spin-speak start to think that way on the inside too?

maxxxxx 10y ago
I sometimes wonder about that too.
rdtsc 10y ago
Oh that's an interesting question. When I speak a different languages I switch to thinking in that language (this goes for human and computer languages). If I talk with a Russian friend, I think in Russian. When use a functional programming language I switch to thinking in functional concepts (maps, folds, list comprehension, closures). When in an OO language think about composition and so on. So when they write that stuff I imagine for an hour they switch to "CEO mode" and think in those concepts, write things down. Then they become themselves [+]. Also the best propaganda is propaganda that is internalized, people often brainwash themselves, because it makes things easier and is much more effective than pretending to speak one thing but think another. [+] One can argue there is no such thing as "oneself" and we are all just a sequences of such personas or roles we play. But that's for a philosophical aside.
- josephpmay 10y ago
  That's absolutely fascinating, because I personally always think the same "way." Are you aware of any research on this subject?
  - executesorder66 10y ago
    I always think in the language I am currently speaking/listening to. And I'm pretty sure everyone else does. As for programming languages, I myself haven't done functional programming, but I'd imagine if I did, I would temporarily discard any OO programming knowledge I have, while busy coding something in a functional way. Because OO concepts are mostly irrelevant in that case, so why would you be thinking about them?
    - tener 10y ago
      Discarding OO concepts is easier said than done. I'm betting that inability to discard OO concepts is the main hurdle people have while learning FP.
      - smitherfield 10y ago
        The good ones generally map to (pardon the pun) equivalent functional concepts.
    - Ntrails 10y ago
      After working in F# for a while if I flip back to something else I'll spend twice as long getting anything done as I'll model my process in my head with tools I don't have access to. I just keep getting stuck, and having to force myself to think without maps and folds and so on. Like any context switch it takes me time to get back into the right mindset and process meaningfully.
  - banachtarski 10y ago
    There's a lot of research that shows that polyglots exhibit different personalities when conversing in different languages. Empirically, I experience this.
  - tarvaina 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity "Linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis or Whorfianism, is a concept-paradigm in linguistics and cognitive science that holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' cognition or world view."
    - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
      What OP is mentioning is only tangentially related to linguistic relativity - more precisely Sapir-Whorf was making very general statements (most of which have not been found to be empirically supported) about the affect of language on world view (e.g. including differences in color word).
grecy 10y ago
> Do people who communicate in spin-speak start to think that way on the inside too? A friend rose up through the ranks in a Telco to become a Director, and I genuinely think she believed the spin-speak was/is real. She spent so many years of her life in meetings having it hammered into her head, then spent so many years hammering it into the heads of others, she actually thought it was real life. Even when we were on vacation out camping away from the office, she would talk about the company using spin-speak. It was not possible to say "cut the crap, let's be frank". She was unaware there was any crap to cut.
amelius 10y ago
> This is why I read the comments first, just avoided another painful article. The comments also load a lot faster than the article, usually :)
yuhong 10y ago
I remember when Ellen Pao was accused of this when she was CEO of Reddit. I think she also made mistakes like posting private links.

This is why I read the comments first, just avoided another painful article. Do people who communicate in spin-speak start to think that way on the inside too?

maxxxxx 10y ago

I sometimes wonder about that too.

rdtsc 10y ago

Oh that's an interesting question. When I speak a different languages I switch to thinking in that language (this goes for human and computer languages). If I talk with a Russian friend, I think in Russian. When use a functional programming language I switch to thinking in functional concepts (maps, folds, list comprehension, closures). When in an OO language think about composition and so on. So when they write that stuff I imagine for an hour they switch to "CEO mode" and think in those concepts, write things down. Then they become themselves [+]. Also the best propaganda is propaganda that is internalized, people often brainwash themselves, because it makes things easier and is much more effective than pretending to speak one thing but think another. [+] One can argue there is no such thing as "oneself" and we are all just a sequences of such personas or roles we play. But that's for a philosophical aside.

josephpmay 10y ago
That's absolutely fascinating, because I personally always think the same "way." Are you aware of any research on this subject?
- executesorder66 10y ago
  I always think in the language I am currently speaking/listening to. And I'm pretty sure everyone else does. As for programming languages, I myself haven't done functional programming, but I'd imagine if I did, I would temporarily discard any OO programming knowledge I have, while busy coding something in a functional way. Because OO concepts are mostly irrelevant in that case, so why would you be thinking about them?
  - tener 10y ago
    Discarding OO concepts is easier said than done. I'm betting that inability to discard OO concepts is the main hurdle people have while learning FP.
    - smitherfield 10y ago
      The good ones generally map to (pardon the pun) equivalent functional concepts.
  - Ntrails 10y ago
    After working in F# for a while if I flip back to something else I'll spend twice as long getting anything done as I'll model my process in my head with tools I don't have access to. I just keep getting stuck, and having to force myself to think without maps and folds and so on. Like any context switch it takes me time to get back into the right mindset and process meaningfully.
- banachtarski 10y ago
  There's a lot of research that shows that polyglots exhibit different personalities when conversing in different languages. Empirically, I experience this.
- tarvaina 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity "Linguistic relativity, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis or Whorfianism, is a concept-paradigm in linguistics and cognitive science that holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers' cognition or world view."
  - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
    What OP is mentioning is only tangentially related to linguistic relativity - more precisely Sapir-Whorf was making very general statements (most of which have not been found to be empirically supported) about the affect of language on world view (e.g. including differences in color word).

grecy 10y ago

> Do people who communicate in spin-speak start to think that way on the inside too? A friend rose up through the ranks in a Telco to become a Director, and I genuinely think she believed the spin-speak was/is real. She spent so many years of her life in meetings having it hammered into her head, then spent so many years hammering it into the heads of others, she actually thought it was real life. Even when we were on vacation out camping away from the office, she would talk about the company using spin-speak. It was not possible to say "cut the crap, let's be frank". She was unaware there was any crap to cut.

amelius 10y ago

> This is why I read the comments first, just avoided another painful article. The comments also load a lot faster than the article, usually :)

yuhong 10y ago

I remember when Ellen Pao was accused of this when she was CEO of Reddit. I think she also made mistakes like posting private links.