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Obfuscation is a practice of the entirety of Academia for a long while now. The art of obfuscation is not new at all. A small anecdote, I remember a Taiwanese f

Obfuscation is a practice of the entirety of Academia for a long while now. The art of obfuscation is not new at all. A small anecdote, I remember a Taiwanese friend mentioning the history of the complexity of Chinese characters and how they were devised, in part, to ensure that the lower class(es) could not learn them. Obfuscation inherently guarantees a lot of things out of the box: you appear more enlightened, only a class of people can understand and thus judge your work, and all newcomers can only become "in the know" if and only if they are trained by someone who already is "in the know". This is very appealing to anyone with even minor insecurities (most people), and has been widely utilized throughout many areas of human society in time. Math is merely one example where this practice has presence. EDIT: I will admit that the more democratized the internet has made knowledge, and the more prevalent higher-degrees become in society, the more awareness people have of this issue and the more it gets called out. So, all in all, there is the positive side of things that this art of obfuscation is in decline of use for things where it should never be used (like education, science, etc.).

augustt 6y ago
I'd say this is generally not true, at least in math. There's definitely poor notation and misnomers that come from tradition, but it's hardly deliberate as "obfuscation" implies.
- mkl 6y ago
  I'm not sure I agree (I have a PhD in maths). There are many maths papers and books I've tried to understand where that seems to have been deliberately made more difficult than it needs to be. Sure, you could argue that I didn't have the necessary prerequisite knowledge at that point, or that the authors simply weren't good at explaining things, but I do get the impression that it's sometimes more than that. Using specialised meanings for words without definition or reference (words that are used for other purposes elsewhere so they can't be searched for) is a key problem, as is the same with notation, and as is leaving out crucial steps. If you're already in the know, those things are probably clear.
  - memexy 6y ago
    But that sounds like bad exposition. What benefit would any author get from purposely obfuscating what they're trying to share?
    - mkl 6y ago
      Could well be, and I have no definitive evidence otherwise, but sometimes it's hard to imagine anyone being that bad at exposition. Some "benefits" might be seeming smarter and more knowledgeable than they are, making it harder to exactly replicate their methods (most relevant in applied areas), or citations by intimidation ("I don't understand this, but it seems impressive and relevant, so I better cite it.").
      - elbear 6y ago
        They all sound plausible and likely. There are people obfuscating knowledge for all the reasons you mentioned. At the same time, it doesn't mean there's a concerted effort to obfuscate mathematics. Explaining things is hard, because you have to create a clear picture of the audience in your mind. Then, you have to draw the lines between what they know and what you want to introduce. The curse of knowledge is a big obstacle here.
    - kxyvr 6y ago
      Every author has their own motivations, but I will echo what the parent has expressed that often, if not the majority of the time, authors are making their papers far more difficult to read than they need be. To that, I'll add anecdote. Some years back, I had a fight with a coauthor on a paper who wanted to remove the majority of the substeps within a proof. He believed that it was condescending to include such material and that any interested reader should be able to derive it for themselves. And, in fact, he asked a colleague in the room at the time who agreed with him. I stated flatly that as the primary author that I could not understand nor complete these proofs without these steps, so the material stays. I contend that at least in this one particular case a combination of exclusivity and arrogance led to an attempt at obfuscation. Remember, publishing isn't just about sharing knowledge. It's also a way to posture, advertise, build a brand, and get grant money. Beyond that, mathematicians are still people with all the imperfections that implies.
- tasogare 6y ago
  Same for the Chinese characters. The complexity (number of characters and their different readings and meanings) stems from all the historical cruft the system accumulated for millennia, not something purposefully engineered to being obscure. There was lot of work made to keep the thing usable. The other thing is at the time yes, people who could read and write was a small minority. That have been the case in other societies with writing too. Not because of a cabal making it difficult but because getting an education was very costly.
agumonkey 6y ago
I'd pay to research that topic. How people ensured gatekeeping due to fear. And how much is useful (because sometimes cutting people can reduce the paradox of choice which can drag things to a halt) or not. ps: I'm also very curious about how much obfuscation is just an icing of fetishism [0] on top of a very natural compression tendency (old mathematics papers were written in full words and I can agree that the meaning can be lost on the way and part of the beauty of mathematics is the short symbols that cover a large set of possibilities). [0] too much pride and a bit of confusion even on the value of notation leading people to think it's more important than intuition and the concept described.

augustt 6y ago

I'd say this is generally not true, at least in math. There's definitely poor notation and misnomers that come from tradition, but it's hardly deliberate as "obfuscation" implies.

mkl 6y ago
I'm not sure I agree (I have a PhD in maths). There are many maths papers and books I've tried to understand where that seems to have been deliberately made more difficult than it needs to be. Sure, you could argue that I didn't have the necessary prerequisite knowledge at that point, or that the authors simply weren't good at explaining things, but I do get the impression that it's sometimes more than that. Using specialised meanings for words without definition or reference (words that are used for other purposes elsewhere so they can't be searched for) is a key problem, as is the same with notation, and as is leaving out crucial steps. If you're already in the know, those things are probably clear.
- memexy 6y ago
  But that sounds like bad exposition. What benefit would any author get from purposely obfuscating what they're trying to share?
  - mkl 6y ago
    Could well be, and I have no definitive evidence otherwise, but sometimes it's hard to imagine anyone being that bad at exposition. Some "benefits" might be seeming smarter and more knowledgeable than they are, making it harder to exactly replicate their methods (most relevant in applied areas), or citations by intimidation ("I don't understand this, but it seems impressive and relevant, so I better cite it.").
    - elbear 6y ago
      They all sound plausible and likely. There are people obfuscating knowledge for all the reasons you mentioned. At the same time, it doesn't mean there's a concerted effort to obfuscate mathematics. Explaining things is hard, because you have to create a clear picture of the audience in your mind. Then, you have to draw the lines between what they know and what you want to introduce. The curse of knowledge is a big obstacle here.
  - kxyvr 6y ago
    Every author has their own motivations, but I will echo what the parent has expressed that often, if not the majority of the time, authors are making their papers far more difficult to read than they need be. To that, I'll add anecdote. Some years back, I had a fight with a coauthor on a paper who wanted to remove the majority of the substeps within a proof. He believed that it was condescending to include such material and that any interested reader should be able to derive it for themselves. And, in fact, he asked a colleague in the room at the time who agreed with him. I stated flatly that as the primary author that I could not understand nor complete these proofs without these steps, so the material stays. I contend that at least in this one particular case a combination of exclusivity and arrogance led to an attempt at obfuscation. Remember, publishing isn't just about sharing knowledge. It's also a way to posture, advertise, build a brand, and get grant money. Beyond that, mathematicians are still people with all the imperfections that implies.
tasogare 6y ago
Same for the Chinese characters. The complexity (number of characters and their different readings and meanings) stems from all the historical cruft the system accumulated for millennia, not something purposefully engineered to being obscure. There was lot of work made to keep the thing usable. The other thing is at the time yes, people who could read and write was a small minority. That have been the case in other societies with writing too. Not because of a cabal making it difficult but because getting an education was very costly.

agumonkey 6y ago

I'd pay to research that topic. How people ensured gatekeeping due to fear. And how much is useful (because sometimes cutting people can reduce the paradox of choice which can drag things to a halt) or not. ps: I'm also very curious about how much obfuscation is just an icing of fetishism [0] on top of a very natural compression tendency (old mathematics papers were written in full words and I can agree that the meaning can be lost on the way and part of the beauty of mathematics is the short symbols that cover a large set of possibilities). [0] too much pride and a bit of confusion even on the value of notation leading people to think it's more important than intuition and the concept described.