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Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

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Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#241

Post by orbifold »

Animats wrote: post #124

This is an observation that goes back to at least Cicero.[1] Cicero on the primary goal of oratory: "As, therefore, the two principal qualities required in an Orator, are to be neat and clear in stating the nature of his subject, and warm and forcible in moving the passions; and as he who fires and inflames his audience, will always effect more than he who can barely inform and amuse them..." Cicero describes the pro…

One of my favourite memories from school was translating parts of Cicero's words from latin. He is considered "easy" to read and translate precisely because he took great care of not using difficult or ambiguous language in his writing as well.

Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#242

Post by freetime2 »

And lots of people will only ever hear what you said second hand. After all nuance has been intentionally stripped out and the message has been spun to serve the aims of the person interpreting it. “Journalists” do this all the time, but I’ve also seen this happen in the workplace.

When I was in grade school I remember my teachers used to constantly stress the importance of primary sources. And I didn’t really understand the importance until much later in life. Why do all that work when someone else has neatly summarized it for me on wikipedia? Now I basically have a rule where I don’t allow myself to have a strong opinion on something unless I’ve gone and read up on primary sources.

Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#243

Post by s5806533 »

lazide wrote: post #101
jodrellblank wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so often said, and so bloody ridiculous a state of affairs for the information technology industry . How hard would it be to have a shared todo list where the team can put every blocking question which needs answering, and everyone who needs to answer can either do that or delegate the decision or approve skipping it? (And I don't mean a sluggish Jira / Electron / Teams / helpdesk which needs 50,000 fields en…

You can’t solve a lack of executive function/decision making capacity (which is what we’re referring to) by making more work/queuing up bullshit work. It will result in everyone just ignoring anything that smells like coming from such a system. Since (almost) no one wants to admit they don’t have enough decision making capacity or can’t prioritize using it for whatever you’re asking (at least now a days it seems, sin…

Sometimes the other party will happily oblige with your request, but only after a totally vacuous phone call that serves absolutely no purpose other than (i) signalling how much effort the other party is spending on you (ii) punishing you with synchronous communication so as to limit your potential request rate.

Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#244

Post by DangitBobby »

Sebb767 wrote: post #212
narag wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet this objectively can't be helped. Actually it can be helped when everybody agrees that some information must be known by everybody. Communication campaigns, making it a subject in schools... So the problem uses to be that there are opposing sides trying to beat each other. OK, that's obvious, isn't it? But come to think of it, is society so divided that most people's interests conflicts with somebody else's? I…

> Communication campaigns, making it a subject in schools... Both of those are basically so delayed and holey that you can forget using it for anything but the most basic points. Just look at how bad some people are at math and that's something both essential and taught extensively for basically the whole time one is in the education system.

This is a good point. A large portion of people can't quite figure out how something so fundamental as fractions work.

Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#245

Post by CyanBird »

Macha wrote: post #88

One of the comments for the thread. > I see this for every post, e.g., when I talked about how latency hadn't improved, one of the most common responses I got was about how I don't understand the good reasons for complexity. > I literally said there are good reasons for complexity in the post It feels like this kind of half baked point scoring reply is just a risk of posting on the internet. I'm sure I've been guilty…

Above in the thread there's a quote on Cicero which covers your issue

> "But let us return to Calvus whom we have just mentioned,—an Orator who had received more literary improvements than Curio, and had a more accurate and delicate manner of speaking, which he conducted with great taste and elegance; but, (by being too minute and nice a critic upon himself,) while he was labouring to correct and refine his language, he suffered all the force and spirit of it to evaporate. In short, it was so exquisitely polished, as to charm the eye of every skilful observer; but it was little noticed by the common people in a crowded Forum, which is the proper theatre of Eloquence."

Cicero tells you that you ought not worry for the pedant, and instead appeal to simpler messaging if your aim is to target larger publics, the fact that you are saying something which could be taken as "conflictive" is itself a benefit if you foreshadow the conflict "there are some whom would say not so! To them I say begone!" and so on, etcetcetc

Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#246

Post by CyanBird »

MereInterest wrote: post #84

This is why there must be separate private and public conversations. A comment that is appropriate for exploring nuances in a small group is inappropriate for wider communication to a large audience. Social media's blurring between small group conversations and publicly broadcasted conversations removes this distinction.

Absolutely correct, this is also why Senate and Congress meetings out be secret and not public

Public discussions quickly devolve onto messaging rather than preserving nuance which itself goes against the main intention and use of said chambers of national debate

For the interested

https://congressionalresearch.org/

Citations from dozens of academics on the topic https://congressionalresearch.org/PartisanshipCitations.html

Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#248

Post by BeFlatXIII »

Aerroon wrote: post #157
crispyambulance wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...read your first bullet point, ignore the rest, and drop all the nuance? Oh hell yes, this is definitely a thing with lots of people. It's one of those WTF realizations that everyone who works in a corporate environment gets slapped in the face with really hard. There are certain people for which you MUST give 1, maybe 2 sentences at a maximum, address them by name, AND, make sure that they're the only person in…

Perhaps those people have just read too many emails in the past that ended up being a waste of their time? Over time they learned to glance at things and predict what the rest of the email is going to say. Think about those download websites where you have to find the download link in the middle of all the ads that are masquerading as download buttons. There's a lot of information on those pages, but people become re…

> If they get a text guide then they will gloss over things and skip steps leading to failure.

I find this to be very true when learning new programming techniques. Most learning resources start from a significantly more basic starting point than most learners are at, so I'm liable to skip until I start seeing things I don't already know how to guess. The problem is that there are often important subtleties buried amidst the obvious knowledge.

Re: Nuanced communication usually doesn't work at scale

#249

Post by jollybean »

akomtu wrote: post #139
jollybean wrote: post #83

We need to talk more about this. That said, Organizations with professionals should be able to do nuance, at least a bit of it. But the general public at large ... you're dealing with 'lowest common denominator' which is 'issues with literacy' and harder to grasp - very limited, care, attention span, and may not even be listening to the message - and may be getting misinformation from elsewhere. Communicating clearly…

The approach used by most famous religious books (bhagavadgita, etc.) is statements with many layers of meanings. For example, such a book might say "do to others what you want others do to yourself" and a well-meaning simpleton gets only the surface level meaning, while a more advanced reader sees the more profound meaning, which might've offended simpletons. So everyone gets exactly as much as useful for them. Meta…

That's a really interesting point, but there's no practical way to do this i.e. to embed multiple layers of meaning into Public Communications.

The rules for Public Communications are the same as they are for branding: Consistency, Clarity, Authenticity. A simple, legitimate message, repeated consistently. "Keep Calm and Move On". "Get Vaccinated". "Wear a Mask". etc..

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