Guarding Against the Postmodernist Failure Mode

NoSignalNoNoise

11 Guarding Against the Postmodernist Failure Mode

8th Jul 2014

2 min read

11

The following two paragraphs got me thinking some rather uncomfortable thoughts about our community's insularity:

We engineers are frequently accused of speaking an alien language, of wrapping what we do in jargon and obscurity in order to preserve the technological priesthood. There is, I think, a grain of truth in this accusation. Defenders frequently counter with arguments about how what we do really is technical and really does require precise language in order to talk about it clearly. There is, I think, a substantial bit of truth in this as well, though it is hard to use these grounds to defend the use of the term "grep" to describe digging through a backpack to find a lost item, as a friend of mine sometimes does. However, I think it's human nature for members of any group to use the ideas they have in common as metaphors for everything else in life, so I'm willing to forgive him.

The really telling factor that neither side of the debate seems to cotton to, however, is this: technical people like me work in a commercial environment. Every day I have to explain what I do to people who are different from me -- marketing people, technical writers, my boss, my investors, my customers -- none of whom belong to my profession or share my technical background or knowledge. As a consequence, I'm constantly forced to describe what I know in terms that other people can at least begin to understand. My success in my job depends to a large degree on my success in so communicating. At the very least, in order to remain employed I have to convince somebody else that what I'm doing is worth having them pay for it.

- Chip Morningstar, "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything: My Postmodern Adventure"

The LW/MIRI/CFAR memeplex shares some important features with postmodernism, namely the strong tendency to go meta, a large amount of jargon that is often impenetrable to outsiders and the lack of an immediate need to justify itself to them. This combination takes away the selective pressure that stops most groups from going totally crazy. As far as I can tell, we have not fallen into this trap, but since people tend to fail to notice when their in-group has gone crazy, this is at best weak evidence that we haven't; furthermore, even assuming that we are in fact perfectly sane now, it will still take effort to maintain that state.

Based on the paragraphs quoted above, having to use our ideas to produce something that outsiders would value, or at least explain them in ways that intelligent outsiders can understand well enough to criticize would create this sort of pressure. Has anyone here tried to do either of these to a significant degree? If so, how, and how successfully?

What other approaches can we take to check (and defend) our collective sanity?

Failure mode

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11 Guarding Against the Postmodernist Failure Mode

by NoSignalNoNoise

8th Jul 2014

2 min read

11

The following two paragraphs got me thinking some rather uncomfortable thoughts about our community's insularity:

We engineers are frequently accused of speaking an alien language, of wrapping what we do in jargon and obscurity in order to preserve the technological priesthood. There is, I think, a grain of truth in this accusation. Defenders frequently counter with arguments about how what we do really is technical and really does require precise language in order to talk about it clearly. There is, I think, a substantial bit of truth in this as well, though it is hard to use these grounds to defend the use of the term "grep" to describe digging through a backpack to find a lost item, as a friend of mine sometimes does. However, I think it's human nature for members of any group to use the ideas they have in common as metaphors for everything else in life, so I'm willing to forgive him.

The really telling factor that neither side of the debate seems to cotton to, however, is this: technical people like me work in a commercial environment. Every day I have to explain what I do to people who are different from me -- marketing people, technical writers, my boss, my investors, my customers -- none of whom belong to my profession or share my technical background or knowledge. As a consequence, I'm constantly forced to describe what I know in terms that other people can at least begin to understand. My success in my job depends to a large degree on my success in so communicating. At the very least, in order to remain employed I have to convince somebody else that what I'm doing is worth having them pay for it.

- Chip Morningstar, "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything: My Postmodern Adventure"

What other approaches can we take to check (and defend) our collective sanity?

Failure mode

Personal Blog

11

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(show more) Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 4:42 PM

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9eB112y110

Scott Alexander recently posted a link to this article which was very interesting. After reading it, the difference between postmodernism and LW rationality seems very large. It doesn't directly address your point, but you may find it interesting.

Separately, I think that you are exaggerating the tendencies LW shares with postmodernism. While LessWrongers love going meta (and they seem to love it even more in person than on the site), what you actually see in discussions here and on rationality blogs is requests to go in either the meta or object-level directions as required by the interlocutor. CFAR specifically has lessons on going toward object-level. Comparing the jargon of postmodernism and LessWrong is not really an equal comparison either. Postmodernism is oftentimes intentionally obscure, and sometimes redefines words to very surprising meanings (see the above linked article), while on LessWrong people seem to go to some pains to coin new language only when old language is insufficient, and explicitly consider what appropriate names would be (the major exception to this is perhaps language coined during the time of the sequences that is still widely used). LW doesn't have a strong need to justify itself to outsiders, but members of Less Wrong seem to mostly have explicit desire to spread rationality, so there is some need. Postmodernism, on the other hand, seems like mostly an insiders-only club. Compare Spreading Postmodernism with Spreading Rationality.

David_Gerard12y80

on LessWrong people seem to go to some pains to coin new language only when old language is insufficient

Are you sure? One of the biggest problems with LW is inventing jargon for philosophical ideas that have had names for a couple of thousand years. This is problematic if the interested reader wants to learn more.

-1TheAncientGeek12y

Organisation A can be like organisation B in every way except their doctrine. It has been remarked, not least by rationalwiki that LW is like Any Rand's Objectivism, although doctrinally they are poles apart. It is perfectly possible for an organisation to pay lip service to outreach without making the changes and sacrifices needed for real engagement.

17TheAncientGeek12y

The pains don't always stretch to learning philosophy, which EY hasn't done, and advises against, with the result that LW jargon in fact often does reinvent philosophical jargon.

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