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I can’t understand why it would be at all safe to conclude this. In any other field, you certainly wouldn’t conclude that good visual design, attention to detai

I can’t understand why it would be at all safe to conclude this. In any other field, you certainly wouldn’t conclude that good visual design, attention to detail, craftsmanship, etc. indicates anything about the factual or moral correctness of the beliefs of the creators. Do the most beautiful and expensive churches indicate the most moral or theologically correct religious groups? Do the best designed uniforms tell you something about the wartime behavior of soldiers or the military policy of the country? Do the pharmaceutical companies with the best produced television advertisements have the best intentions and products backed by the best medical research?

pdonis 1y ago
You have it backwards. PG agrees that you can't conclude from the fact that something is beautiful that it's also right--he says "we can't safely conclude that beautiful writing is true". What PG is saying is that if something is ugly, you can conclude that it's most likely wrong as well.
- skybrian 1y ago
  You can’t safely conclude that either. It could be a hastily-written rough draft. It could be the result of effort, but written by someone who isn’t fluent in English. Attention to detail is a signal of quality, but these things are just heuristics, not reliable truths.
  - pdonis 1y ago
    > It could be a hastily-written rough draft. It could be the result of effort, but written by someone who isn’t fluent in English. The article says it is ruling out both of these possibilities, as other posts elsewhere in this discussion have already pointed out.
- tshaddox 1y ago
  Yes, I understand what he is saying and it’s precisely what I am disputing.
  - pdonis 1y ago
    > I understand what he is saying and it’s precisely what I am disputing. I don't see how. Your post was disputing the claim that good design, craftsmanship, beauty, etc. are signs of correctness. And that's not the claim PG makes in the article. Your post never disputed the claim PG did make, which is that bad design and craftsmanship, ugliness, etc., are signs of lack of correctness.
    - adriand 1y ago
      In the first paragraph, he writes, ”I think writing that sounds good is more likely to be right.” So he does indeed make the claim you say he doesn’t make. The essay itself lacks anything novel, despite the rather breathless framing: “So here we have the most exciting kind of idea: one that seems both preposterous and true.” These ideas are a couple of hundred years old at least. Kant: “the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good”. This is classic Age of Enlightenment stuff, repackaged in classic Silicon Valley VC style.
      - frazbin 1y ago
        yep totes. good style is sometimes proximate to good ideas because both indicate the author has spent lots of 'thinking tokens' on the thing, which is a costly and therefore sometimes-more-reliable signal. but i believe it falls apart under intensive selection -- the things we read are popular, and so on average are selection-survivors, which means they'll approach the optimal ratio of thinking token spend on style/vs substance for survival, which may not be the same as the best ratio for precise or insightful communication. but the best communication survives too because it touches universal truths by connecting them with specific real phenomena. the worst (most harmful) communication survives because it frantically goodharts our quality evaluation process, even when it contradicts truth or reality. e.g. Orwell on the good side, L Ron Hubbard on the bad side. Unfortunately these categories are often not well sorted until after the principals are all dead (probably because everyone has to die before you can tell whether the values are universal or just generationally interesting), and there's a style-bar that has to be cleared before you even get to join the canon for consideration; interestingly this this would tend to increase the illusion that style is associated with substance, especially in older writing.
AdamN 1y ago
Nobody said that. The comment above said that poor writing is indicative of poor thinking (about the subject).

pdonis 1y ago

You have it backwards. PG agrees that you can't conclude from the fact that something is beautiful that it's also right--he says "we can't safely conclude that beautiful writing is true". What PG is saying is that if something is ugly, you can conclude that it's most likely wrong as well.

skybrian 1y ago
You can’t safely conclude that either. It could be a hastily-written rough draft. It could be the result of effort, but written by someone who isn’t fluent in English. Attention to detail is a signal of quality, but these things are just heuristics, not reliable truths.
- pdonis 1y ago
  > It could be a hastily-written rough draft. It could be the result of effort, but written by someone who isn’t fluent in English. The article says it is ruling out both of these possibilities, as other posts elsewhere in this discussion have already pointed out.
tshaddox 1y ago
Yes, I understand what he is saying and it’s precisely what I am disputing.
- pdonis 1y ago
  > I understand what he is saying and it’s precisely what I am disputing. I don't see how. Your post was disputing the claim that good design, craftsmanship, beauty, etc. are signs of correctness. And that's not the claim PG makes in the article. Your post never disputed the claim PG did make, which is that bad design and craftsmanship, ugliness, etc., are signs of lack of correctness.
  - adriand 1y ago
    In the first paragraph, he writes, ”I think writing that sounds good is more likely to be right.” So he does indeed make the claim you say he doesn’t make. The essay itself lacks anything novel, despite the rather breathless framing: “So here we have the most exciting kind of idea: one that seems both preposterous and true.” These ideas are a couple of hundred years old at least. Kant: “the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good”. This is classic Age of Enlightenment stuff, repackaged in classic Silicon Valley VC style.
    - frazbin 1y ago
      yep totes. good style is sometimes proximate to good ideas because both indicate the author has spent lots of 'thinking tokens' on the thing, which is a costly and therefore sometimes-more-reliable signal. but i believe it falls apart under intensive selection -- the things we read are popular, and so on average are selection-survivors, which means they'll approach the optimal ratio of thinking token spend on style/vs substance for survival, which may not be the same as the best ratio for precise or insightful communication. but the best communication survives too because it touches universal truths by connecting them with specific real phenomena. the worst (most harmful) communication survives because it frantically goodharts our quality evaluation process, even when it contradicts truth or reality. e.g. Orwell on the good side, L Ron Hubbard on the bad side. Unfortunately these categories are often not well sorted until after the principals are all dead (probably because everyone has to die before you can tell whether the values are universal or just generationally interesting), and there's a style-bar that has to be cleared before you even get to join the canon for consideration; interestingly this this would tend to increase the illusion that style is associated with substance, especially in older writing.

AdamN 1y ago

Nobody said that. The comment above said that poor writing is indicative of poor thinking (about the subject).