Sometimes I'll be speaking to someone and use an obscure word or concept they're unfamiliar with. There's a few different reactions, and, well, I understand mine and do not understand the ones that are not mine. I spent five minutes thinking about it, trying to model why people are crazy and the world is mad, and came up with these more-common reactions and my hypotheses:
- Google the unknown reference, get the definition or wikipedia summary, then respond ("understanding is necessary to communication and now I've learned something new").
- Ignore it and carry on the conversation as best possible anyway ("doesn't matter what it meant, I'm just here for the social contact").
- Get angry at the ostentatious erudition ("you have just made an implied status grab and I'm slapping you down").
If it's not obvious, #1 is my knee-jerk reaction to unknown references; #2 seems to be the way most people deal with it; and I have a lot of difficulty dealing with #3 even remotely charitabl--STOP.
No.
I don't get to use a verbal justification of #1 and compare it to an evopsych historical-cause of #3. That's a type error, or something, and also hypocrisy: by making the comparison, I'm setting myself above those poor adaptation-executing sheep, i.e. I'm doing exactly what (I think) they're getting angry at me about. Despite my uncharitable framing, their implied complaint is absolutely correct!
This bothers me, and I suddenly don't trust my own perspective, so I'm farming it out: what's really going on here? What do #2 and #3 feel like from the inside, and what's the symmetric explanation of #1?
for #3 feels like from the inside:
" This person just used a highly technical word/jargon I do not know, although it's not a status grab, its so fucking annoying that you would think that I would know that word. How could you be so smart and stupid at the same time? Of course I don't know that word, don't you have some sense of savoir faire to anticipate I might not know that word"?