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>Were you worried that others' reading skills would atrophy if they only needed to read 100 words to get the point, and so you posted 400 words while still miss

by serf 4y ago

>Were you worried that others' reading skills would atrophy if they only needed to read 100 words to get the point, and so you posted 400 words while still missing a critical block of 50? If you truly think that's why people write long-form prose then I totally understand your ire towards it -- but unfortunately that idea is so far away from reality that I'm afraid I don't understand at all. At the risk of being an inaccurate arm-chair psychoanalyst I think that your anger and aggression towards it comes from a fear of missing out. Rather than skipping the things that are written in a style that you disagree with you read them anyway -- upset the entire time that the prose isn't written how you want it to be -- and then vent your frustrations by accusing the author or post writer of machinations that simply do not exist. No one is worried about your reading skills. I initially had the urge to meet that sarcasm (is it sarcasm? hard to tell) with more of my own ("Oh yeah, you figured it out, that's exactly what the author meant to do") until I considered that perhaps you would misunderstand that as acceptance from peers. My perspective in a few words : Some things don't compress. Long-form has a place in my life for that reason.

cercatrova 4y ago
Indeed, I did not understand the aggressiveness either, in both their comment before I quoted the article as a reason, and in their comment afterwards. I too wanted to match it with sarcasm, but I stopped myself for the same reason as you did.
SilasX 4y ago
>If you truly think that's why people write long-form prose then I totally understand your ire towards it Woosh? That was a tongue-in-cheek reference back to the original Socrates/Plato quote worrying about thinking skills atrophying due to writing. For someone so married to the idea of being a deep thinker, who rigorously and patiently reads thick prose, you sure missed an obvious reference. >At the risk of being an inaccurate arm-chair psychoanalyst I think that your anger and aggression There's no need to psychoanalyze. Cercatrova took ~400 words, most of which were unnecessary, to bring up an idea, and not even make clear what part of the article it was related too. That's a really wasteful form of communication, and I pointed out why, then later on showed a better way to do it. Most people would appreciate being told how they could communicate an idea better, and if there's someone here with a toxic personality, I would say it's the one who's trying to medicalize it and act like it's some kind of mental illness, rather than a request for common courtesy. If you want to ascribe a personality trait to me, how about "distaste at people who waste others' time making their ideas obscure through poor communication", and I have to ask -- why don't you have that personality trait as well? Do you not like when others understand your ideas? Are you worried they'll better see the flaws?

by serf 4y ago

cercatrova 4y ago

Indeed, I did not understand the aggressiveness either, in both their comment before I quoted the article as a reason, and in their comment afterwards. I too wanted to match it with sarcasm, but I stopped myself for the same reason as you did.

SilasX 4y ago

>If you truly think that's why people write long-form prose then I totally understand your ire towards it Woosh? That was a tongue-in-cheek reference back to the original Socrates/Plato quote worrying about thinking skills atrophying due to writing. For someone so married to the idea of being a deep thinker, who rigorously and patiently reads thick prose, you sure missed an obvious reference. >At the risk of being an inaccurate arm-chair psychoanalyst I think that your anger and aggression There's no need to psychoanalyze. Cercatrova took ~400 words, most of which were unnecessary, to bring up an idea, and not even make clear what part of the article it was related too. That's a really wasteful form of communication, and I pointed out why, then later on showed a better way to do it. Most people would appreciate being told how they could communicate an idea better, and if there's someone here with a toxic personality, I would say it's the one who's trying to medicalize it and act like it's some kind of mental illness, rather than a request for common courtesy. If you want to ascribe a personality trait to me, how about "distaste at people who waste others' time making their ideas obscure through poor communication", and I have to ask -- why don't you have that personality trait as well? Do you not like when others understand your ideas? Are you worried they'll better see the flaws?