I’m in broad overall agreement here- legibility is one of many virtues and the trade-offs are not always in its favor. I do think context matters a lot here. In one:many written broadcasts to strangers, I lean pretty heavily on legibility and track record (although still not exclusively). With my closest friends we spend a lot of time saying completely unjustifiable things that gesture at something important and work it out together, sometimes over months.
I am afraid of the pattern where people claim intuition and track record when called on poor legibility, and “being wrong before doesn’t make me wrong now, you have to engage with my argument” when called on a poor track record. I don’t think this is necessarily more likely or a bigger harm than your fears about excessive pushes for legibility, but it does strike deeper for me personally.
I’m in broad overall agreement here- legibility is one of many virtues and the trade-offs are not always in its favor. I do think context matters a lot here. In one:many written broadcasts to strangers, I lean pretty heavily on legibility and track record (although still not exclusively). With my closest friends we spend a lot of time saying completely unjustifiable things that gesture at something important and work it out together, sometimes over months.
I am afraid of the pattern where people claim intuition and track record when called on poor legibility, and “being wrong before doesn’t make me wrong now, you have to engage with my argument” when called on a poor track record. I don’t think this is necessarily more likely or a bigger harm than your fears about excessive pushes for legibility, but it does strike deeper for me personally.