I think I’d filter my “technical” requirement a bit further. Not “only possible in technical domains”, but “only possible for those parts of technical domains for which jargon and terms of art have been developed and accepted”. Technical domains that are changing or being explored require a lot of words and interactive probing before any sort of terse communication is possible.
Even armies and trained emergency workers are very limited in the types of information they can transfer quickly and correctly, and that’s AFTER a whole lot of training and preparation so that most commands are subroutine triggers, not idea transfers.
I sympathize with the desire to “make important domains technical”, but I suspect it’s a mix of levels that is ultimately incoherent. In domains where there is a natural feedback loop to precision, it’ll happen by itself. In domains where the feedback loops _don’t_ favor precision and territory-matching, it won’t and can’t. One could claim that is the difference between an “important” domain and one that isn’t, but one would be falling for the very same problem we’re discussing: the word “important” doesn’t mean the same thing to each of us.
Note that small groups of shared-context individuals _CAN_ have technical discussions on topics that are otherwise imprecise and socially constructed. It’s just impossible for larger or more heterogeneous groups to do so.
I think I’d filter my “technical” requirement a bit further. Not “only possible in technical domains”, but “only possible for those parts of technical domains for which jargon and terms of art have been developed and accepted”. Technical domains that are changing or being explored require a lot of words and interactive probing before any sort of terse communication is possible.
Even armies and trained emergency workers are very limited in the types of information they can transfer quickly and correctly, and that’s AFTER a whole lot of training and preparation so that most commands are subroutine triggers, not idea transfers.
I sympathize with the desire to “make important domains technical”, but I suspect it’s a mix of levels that is ultimately incoherent. In domains where there is a natural feedback loop to precision, it’ll happen by itself. In domains where the feedback loops _don’t_ favor precision and territory-matching, it won’t and can’t. One could claim that is the difference between an “important” domain and one that isn’t, but one would be falling for the very same problem we’re discussing: the word “important” doesn’t mean the same thing to each of us.
Note that small groups of shared-context individuals _CAN_ have technical discussions on topics that are otherwise imprecise and socially constructed. It’s just impossible for larger or more heterogeneous groups to do so.