OK, so the only point of your analogy was to explain how you feel about being asked to explain what DI is? Fair enough. Then all I can say is: It doesn't seem to me that you've successfully communicated how you feel about that, since apparently you find it unreasonable to be asked to explain what DI is, whereas if I try to imagine myself in any genuinely-analogous situation then I don't find it unreasonable to be asked the corresponding question.
I'm also rather confused about what your actual problem with explaining what DI is is. You say it's kinda like the problem someone has who's asked to explain what physics is. But (see above) it seems to me to be highly unlike that problem in a couple of respects that (for me) seem to be central to the difficulty of the problem. So what, in fact, is it about DI that makes it so difficult for you to say what it is?
An uncharitable explanation suggests itself: Perhaps you cannot say just what DI is because you don't know what DI is; you've read things saying how wonderful it is, and you've experienced something that purports to be DI and found that it works well, and concluded: DI is great -- without actually pinning down just what DI is. I don't think this is terribly likely (though I suspect that situations of roughly that sort are quite common, and for sure I have been in them myself), but it might be useful for you to try explaining why you don't think that's what's going on. (Assuming that you don't.)
Yeah, this analogy-laden meta-digression is getting a bit ridiculous, I agree. Forget the physics stuff, at least for now.
Yeah, I am just a student of DI theory myself, largely just reciting outlines of my own mental notes.
If you could possibly find the time to check the online catalogs of any university libraries near you to see if they have the book... because if you could easily get your hands on a copy, it wouldn't be too hard to just try skimming the section and chapter summaries.
...An uncharitable explanation suggests itself: Perhaps you cannot say ju
[NOTE: This was a discussion post asking if anyone would mind giving feedback on a very rough draft in progress.
If you are downvoting it because you do not want to see discussion posts asking for feedback like this, then by all means, that's a valid use of a downvote.
But if you are downvoting it in order to express your opinion of the quality of the draft, I urge you to reconsider]
This is another work in progress coming at the DI issue from a somewhat different direction. It's contained in the comments of the original, and I'm posting this to ask for more wonderful beta-reader critics to tell me if it's a step in the right direction. (It's still very informal writing, but it's the ideas I'm dealing with now.)
And about what I'm looking for in the LW audience, someone asked me in a private message:
And I said:
Well, that's the major part of what I want that's important here. I also had to add:
But that's not important here (except to disclose that is where I'm coming from). LWers would first have to understand DI to fully grasp that. And I am significantly less certain of my current beliefs about those 'strategic twists' (although still pretty certain), and LWers proficient in DI would be the best to evaluate the ideas.