I think that the problem is not that the initiates use jargon, but that the jargon is appropriated and misused in wider contexts, either to over-simplify or to

I think that the problem is not that the initiates use jargon, but that the jargon is appropriated and misused in wider contexts, either to over-simplify or to misdirect: > Concepts like “algorithm” have become sloppy shorthands, slang terms for the act of mistaking multipart complex systems for simple, singular ones. Consider credit-card fraud detection - if I tell a customer whose card transaction was just rejected: "Oh, your bank's fraud algorithm made a mistake, just call the toll-free number on the back of the card" then I have simplified for convenience, in a way that the customer is likely to understand. On the other hand, if I say, "the intelligence/security services of country X have an algorithm to identify potential evil-doers" then I have very likely vastly over-simplified, to the point of misleading an audience. (and inviting discussion of the algorithm rather than any of the many algorithms, services, agents, evils, doers, etc.) Substitute "incantation" or "luminiferous aether" for algorithm, and the problem remains - a shorthand expression for a complicated thing allows us to inaccurately treat the complicated thing as a simple thing.