3 ms·

> Why did people have bandwidth instead of time? Because "bandwidth" isn't about having time to deal with an issue. It's about the mental capacity and effort n

> Why did people have bandwidth instead of time? Because "bandwidth" isn't about having time to deal with an issue. It's about the mental capacity and effort necessary to process the issue. When you're working on complex multi-step issues, even if you have time between steps to handle another issue, you may not have the mental capacity to add that effort into what you're already doing without losing focus on the primary task. "Bandwidth" indicates the ability to recieve, process, and return information in a timely manner, not just the time itself.

savanaly 4y ago
Agreed. I am an English speaker and fluent in the corp speak dialect and at least to me a lot of these terms (maybe all of them?) have different connotations than what the author thought was a totally equivalent English word (e.g. "let's meet" and "let's sync" convey very different implications, to me). And why would that be surprising? I'm doing and behaving in different ways at work than I do outside of it so new words to accurately capture that are sensible. When I play survival-crafting video games with friends that requires elaborate coordination I find myself slipping into corp speak for some things and it's because we are then doing the sort of communication that corp speak can render most clearly. At the same time I don't deny that fluently using the words is a way of signaling conformity or insiderness to the corp culture and that is distinct from the words' usefuleness. It's probably this part of them that rankles HN folks, but they are just wrong when they say the words are 100% signaling with no inherent value. The part about how the language objectifies people or is anti-social strikes me as pure speculation by the way-- I don't find anything humans do to be particularly inhuman and definitely not corp-speak. It signals participation in what is an outgroup to some so they dislike it but shouldn't pat themself on the back for disliking it.
- unbalancedevh 4y ago
  > e.g. "let's meet" and "let's sync" convey very different implications, to me I think the author was just using that as a set-up for the rest of the article, and that the point was that the corp-speak version intentionally removes any implication by making it passive. The interpretation then becomes what you infer, not what was implied.

savanaly 4y ago

Agreed. I am an English speaker and fluent in the corp speak dialect and at least to me a lot of these terms (maybe all of them?) have different connotations than what the author thought was a totally equivalent English word (e.g. "let's meet" and "let's sync" convey very different implications, to me). And why would that be surprising? I'm doing and behaving in different ways at work than I do outside of it so new words to accurately capture that are sensible. When I play survival-crafting video games with friends that requires elaborate coordination I find myself slipping into corp speak for some things and it's because we are then doing the sort of communication that corp speak can render most clearly. At the same time I don't deny that fluently using the words is a way of signaling conformity or insiderness to the corp culture and that is distinct from the words' usefuleness. It's probably this part of them that rankles HN folks, but they are just wrong when they say the words are 100% signaling with no inherent value. The part about how the language objectifies people or is anti-social strikes me as pure speculation by the way-- I don't find anything humans do to be particularly inhuman and definitely not corp-speak. It signals participation in what is an outgroup to some so they dislike it but shouldn't pat themself on the back for disliking it.

unbalancedevh 4y ago
> e.g. "let's meet" and "let's sync" convey very different implications, to me I think the author was just using that as a set-up for the rest of the article, and that the point was that the corp-speak version intentionally removes any implication by making it passive. The interpretation then becomes what you infer, not what was implied.