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People love to say this, but this is extremely dense writing riddled with technical language, written for people trained in reading it. You could perhaps elimin

People love to say this, but this is extremely dense writing riddled with technical language, written for people trained in reading it. You could perhaps eliminate some of the jargon, but in doing so you'd have to substitute a book's worth of less "florid" writing to get the same point across.

ajkjk 4y ago
"florid" as a word means "excessively complicated", not just "complicated". I'd describe this writing as florid because it its fanciness and complexity is obnoxious and unnecessary. Of course it's my opinion, but yeah, I think it's just bad writing, written to sound pretentious on purpose, doing a shit job of communicating its point because it wants to be inaccessible. You could easily write the same thing more clearly in no more space. I'm not arguing against beautiful writing or technical writing; I'm arguing against this thing that was pasted above, which is obnoxious, full-of-itself, not-at-all-beautiful writing.
- humanizersequel 4y ago
  >You could easily write the same thing more clearly in no more space. I certainly couldn't, and I have spent a reasonable amount of time studying Nomadology (the text from which this passage is taken). Why don't you give it a shot? Put your money where your mouth is, let's say just the second paragraph, as that's the more serious offender in terms of jargon. I sincerely don't think you can rewrite it to be ~12 lines, forgoing all the technical jargon used, and retain all of the semantic content. Frankly, barring a demonstration of this task you could supposedly "easily" accomplish, it reads like you're just denigrating the writing because you can't understand it.
  - ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
    Sure you could: "In chess pieces have identity and thus differentiated functions, in go they don't. At the level of state/war machine there are also functionaries: the president, the general, but also interchangeable parts: soldiers, workers." It just doesn't mean anything that you can summarize this or anything (Deleuze or not), you could even use a statistical learning tool to summarize it. You could summarize your deepest pain using just the words "it hurt", or your deepest pleasure with the banal, Owen-Wilson-esque interjection, "wow", so what? These people have just been mesmerized by Marcus Hutter and the like that "compression is intelligence", or by Richard Feynman and the like that things must be simple and explainable to a child: yes, maybe, if you write equations; no, if you are expressing love: philo-sophia. I just imagine reading their love letters: "Dear beloved, Today, as previously told, I love you also, Signed".
    - humanizersequel 4y ago
      >"In chess pieces have identity and thus differentiated functions, in go they don't. At the level of state/war machine there are also functionaries: the president, the general, but also interchangeable parts: soldiers, workers." I'm pretty sure you're agreeing with me in a roundabout way, but for posterity: this is clearly not a lossless compression.

ajkjk 4y ago

"florid" as a word means "excessively complicated", not just "complicated". I'd describe this writing as florid because it its fanciness and complexity is obnoxious and unnecessary. Of course it's my opinion, but yeah, I think it's just bad writing, written to sound pretentious on purpose, doing a shit job of communicating its point because it wants to be inaccessible. You could easily write the same thing more clearly in no more space. I'm not arguing against beautiful writing or technical writing; I'm arguing against this thing that was pasted above, which is obnoxious, full-of-itself, not-at-all-beautiful writing.

humanizersequel 4y ago
>You could easily write the same thing more clearly in no more space. I certainly couldn't, and I have spent a reasonable amount of time studying Nomadology (the text from which this passage is taken). Why don't you give it a shot? Put your money where your mouth is, let's say just the second paragraph, as that's the more serious offender in terms of jargon. I sincerely don't think you can rewrite it to be ~12 lines, forgoing all the technical jargon used, and retain all of the semantic content. Frankly, barring a demonstration of this task you could supposedly "easily" accomplish, it reads like you're just denigrating the writing because you can't understand it.
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  Sure you could: "In chess pieces have identity and thus differentiated functions, in go they don't. At the level of state/war machine there are also functionaries: the president, the general, but also interchangeable parts: soldiers, workers." It just doesn't mean anything that you can summarize this or anything (Deleuze or not), you could even use a statistical learning tool to summarize it. You could summarize your deepest pain using just the words "it hurt", or your deepest pleasure with the banal, Owen-Wilson-esque interjection, "wow", so what? These people have just been mesmerized by Marcus Hutter and the like that "compression is intelligence", or by Richard Feynman and the like that things must be simple and explainable to a child: yes, maybe, if you write equations; no, if you are expressing love: philo-sophia. I just imagine reading their love letters: "Dear beloved, Today, as previously told, I love you also, Signed".
  - humanizersequel 4y ago
    >"In chess pieces have identity and thus differentiated functions, in go they don't. At the level of state/war machine there are also functionaries: the president, the general, but also interchangeable parts: soldiers, workers." I'm pretty sure you're agreeing with me in a roundabout way, but for posterity: this is clearly not a lossless compression.