5 ms·

> Thanks! My point wasn't to argue that they are necessarily mutually exclusive, but that given a selection criterion of (entertaining+accurate>threshold), we s

> Thanks! My point wasn't to argue that they are necessarily mutually exclusive, but that given a selection criterion of (entertaining+accurate>threshold), we shouldn't be surprised that it looks very much so. That selection criteria is bad because it implies that more entertaining things can be less accurate, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. The selection criteria I'd like to propose is transmits accurate information to intended audience. If it's not entertaining enough to engage said audience, it doesn't matter how accurate it is, and if it's not accurate enough, it doesn't matter how entertaining it is. Or put another way, entertaining > threshold and accurate > threshold. > (and I wouldn't wish to discourage anyone from being accurate and writing for a small-circle[0] audience; just as there are people who make pop music, and people who make music for musicians, in the internet age only a mass market publisher should decry history for historians) Of course! In fact, I have no problem with writing for no audience at all, I do it myself often. But I write it in my journal, and on the rare occasions I post it publicly, I don't whine if nobody reads it. > In particular, entertaining usually involves telling something story-shaped and I'm not convinced —although I'll dig a bit into these recommendations[1]— that "what happened" always, or even often[2], has an entertaining shape. I don't think "entertaining" necessarily involves telling something with a story arc. More often, I think, it involves making an argument, i.e persuading your audience why what you are telling them matters.

gsf_emergency 2y ago
Fuck the opening games, methinks both of you[1] suffer from academia-envy.. Low-brow AND accurate[0] feedback is where it has 100% always been at, do that & put both lobste.rs & HN outta business? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27141538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27141538 Note that YC have defended vigorously the accused in question.. Lagniappe: https://wildedecadents.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-serious-and-humorous/#comment-40 https://wildedecadents.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-serious-...
- kerkeslager 2y ago
  > Fuck the opening games, methinks both of you[1] suffer from academia-envy.. The language posturing of academia is actually part of why I've never pursued academia. Your [1] link is missing. > Low-brow AND accurate[0] feedback is where it has 100% always been at, do that & put both lobste.rs & HN outta business? If you're saying that low-brow and accurate "is where it's at", i.e. low and accurate is what you like--fine, but I care nothing at all about the browed-ness of communication. The only reason I'd ever use highbrow language is to communicate with an audience that won't listen otherwise, and that's usually not worth the effort. If you're saying that low-brow and accurate exists, of course it does. That's a big part of my disagreement with Matthew Walther--he seems to think it doesn't exist when it obviously does. One thing I'll point out here: I don't care that your communication here is lowbrow, but I do care that it's not clear.
  - gsf_emergency 2y ago
    There are other aspects of academia in these discussions here, e.g. the stances that default to combative (no citation needed :) the big part where you surprised me (nicely, I should add) right there is pointing out that what I should not have left implicit was: Low-brow ">" entertaining as a metric. At the cost of more words, "entertaining" is quite the moving target. If we make the conceit that "entertainment"="accessible humour" then "Cicero" suggested that we can make our jobs more straightforward. Finally, sometimes it's the subject matter that is poorly understood.[cheap] humour can even point a laser beam at that cat. We don't have to blame the language, but it helps!
    - gsf_emergency 2y ago
      >you surprised me On reflection, I'd like to clarify that this is not an invitation to a Grundyfest*. I was genuinely pleased that the effectiveness gap between low-brow and entertaining isn't as clearcut as I'd thought. That may be worth thinking about *https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225033 [note here that applying the low-brow sustainably may require a more active management of surprise than is typical for "entertainments". (Orthogonal to the accuracy aspect, but not to the audience targeting)]
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  was [1] supposed to lead to the recent discussion of the lack of a useful distinction between 2nd person singular and plural in (unlike AAVE) SAE? come to think of it, maybe my fascination with Linebarger's Psychological Warfare is because (delicately speaking of the indelicate*) he argues high-brow theories whose subject matter is convincing people via low-brow rhetoric? > "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. ... Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever." —Lady AB * I'll have to check De Oratore because Uncle Google certainly isn't confirming this belongs to that most famous of the garbanzo-noses?
  - gsf_emergency 2y ago
    Ah no, was about going to go on a (short) rant about lobste.rs as a sign of the disease of academia spreading to industry (via SW"E"s, no less) and further on how these two tribes exchange diseases but not cures and furthermore got distracted.. >he argues Before that happens here, I now prefer "feedback" to persuasion but of course that is still usually poorly taken as ADvice (by yours truly, at least) if we leave out the "Ciceronian" Personal social feedback that the People want, take that, DomGPT! (A drop in replacement for the Man in the fight against (co)solipsism sans dang's assist)
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      The Remarkable Rocket is remarkable, because although we no longer have as many fairy stories as the Victorians, so it's more difficult to appreciate his mockery of the form, and we don't have as much casual exposure to streamside wildlife as they probably did, those are all ancillary points and his main effort* continues to shine through. (is the opposite of DomGPT RanGPT or SubGPT?) * tho judging from the commentary at https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/RemRoc.shtml https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/RemRoc.sht... comedies of manners, despite my prior belief in their accessibility, may be much more on the accuracy side and less on the entertainment.
      - gsf_emergency 2y ago
082349872349872 2y ago
I think we're agreeing more than we might think, for (entertaining > threshold and accurate > threshold) is what's left after applying Sturgeon's Law to (entertaining or accurate > threshold). [also, I may be overly cynical, but I think making an argument already puts us well over on the accuracy side — you and I might enjoy that sort of thing, but in the grand scheme of things I see arguments as being only slightly more popular than the My Dinner With André video game adaptation] Have you see Gonick, Cartoon History of the Universe (1990)? I find it entertaining, and (to the extent I recognised them) think he does his sources justice at the same time. However, it did take him a dozen or so years to produce...

gsf_emergency 2y ago

Fuck the opening games, methinks both of you[1] suffer from academia-envy.. Low-brow AND accurate[0] feedback is where it has 100% always been at, do that & put both lobste.rs & HN outta business? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27141538 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27141538 Note that YC have defended vigorously the accused in question.. Lagniappe: https://wildedecadents.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-serious-and-humorous/#comment-40 https://wildedecadents.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/the-serious-...

kerkeslager 2y ago
> Fuck the opening games, methinks both of you[1] suffer from academia-envy.. The language posturing of academia is actually part of why I've never pursued academia. Your [1] link is missing. > Low-brow AND accurate[0] feedback is where it has 100% always been at, do that & put both lobste.rs & HN outta business? If you're saying that low-brow and accurate "is where it's at", i.e. low and accurate is what you like--fine, but I care nothing at all about the browed-ness of communication. The only reason I'd ever use highbrow language is to communicate with an audience that won't listen otherwise, and that's usually not worth the effort. If you're saying that low-brow and accurate exists, of course it does. That's a big part of my disagreement with Matthew Walther--he seems to think it doesn't exist when it obviously does. One thing I'll point out here: I don't care that your communication here is lowbrow, but I do care that it's not clear.
- gsf_emergency 2y ago
  There are other aspects of academia in these discussions here, e.g. the stances that default to combative (no citation needed :) the big part where you surprised me (nicely, I should add) right there is pointing out that what I should not have left implicit was: Low-brow ">" entertaining as a metric. At the cost of more words, "entertaining" is quite the moving target. If we make the conceit that "entertainment"="accessible humour" then "Cicero" suggested that we can make our jobs more straightforward. Finally, sometimes it's the subject matter that is poorly understood.[cheap] humour can even point a laser beam at that cat. We don't have to blame the language, but it helps!
  - gsf_emergency 2y ago
    >you surprised me On reflection, I'd like to clarify that this is not an invitation to a Grundyfest*. I was genuinely pleased that the effectiveness gap between low-brow and entertaining isn't as clearcut as I'd thought. That may be worth thinking about *https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225033 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14225033 [note here that applying the low-brow sustainably may require a more active management of surprise than is typical for "entertainments". (Orthogonal to the accuracy aspect, but not to the audience targeting)]
082349872349872 2y ago
was [1] supposed to lead to the recent discussion of the lack of a useful distinction between 2nd person singular and plural in (unlike AAVE) SAE? come to think of it, maybe my fascination with Linebarger's Psychological Warfare is because (delicately speaking of the indelicate*) he argues high-brow theories whose subject matter is convincing people via low-brow rhetoric? > "Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. ... Fortunately, in England at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever." —Lady AB * I'll have to check De Oratore because Uncle Google certainly isn't confirming this belongs to that most famous of the garbanzo-noses?
- gsf_emergency 2y ago
  Ah no, was about going to go on a (short) rant about lobste.rs as a sign of the disease of academia spreading to industry (via SW"E"s, no less) and further on how these two tribes exchange diseases but not cures and furthermore got distracted.. >he argues Before that happens here, I now prefer "feedback" to persuasion but of course that is still usually poorly taken as ADvice (by yours truly, at least) if we leave out the "Ciceronian" Personal social feedback that the People want, take that, DomGPT! (A drop in replacement for the Man in the fight against (co)solipsism sans dang's assist)
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    The Remarkable Rocket is remarkable, because although we no longer have as many fairy stories as the Victorians, so it's more difficult to appreciate his mockery of the form, and we don't have as much casual exposure to streamside wildlife as they probably did, those are all ancillary points and his main effort* continues to shine through. (is the opposite of DomGPT RanGPT or SubGPT?) * tho judging from the commentary at https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/RemRoc.shtml https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/RemRoc.sht... comedies of manners, despite my prior belief in their accessibility, may be much more on the accuracy side and less on the entertainment.
    - gsf_emergency 2y ago

082349872349872 2y ago

I think we're agreeing more than we might think, for (entertaining > threshold and accurate > threshold) is what's left after applying Sturgeon's Law to (entertaining or accurate > threshold). [also, I may be overly cynical, but I think making an argument already puts us well over on the accuracy side — you and I might enjoy that sort of thing, but in the grand scheme of things I see arguments as being only slightly more popular than the My Dinner With André video game adaptation] Have you see Gonick, Cartoon History of the Universe (1990)? I find it entertaining, and (to the extent I recognised them) think he does his sources justice at the same time. However, it did take him a dozen or so years to produce...