I don’t think that Zack’s reading is going to be especially representative; I think that a supermajority of people would not independently generate an understanding of 5 that matches his.
(Something different happens if people are given a Multiple Choice question where Zack’s interpretation is one of four or five possible interpretations; there I suspect it is an attractor that would drag more people in. This is most of why it’s important to me that he be understood to not actually be responding to me, rather than to his own strawman.)
If I were to discover that e.g. half of readers interpreted me the way Zack did, this would mean that I urgently needed to rewrite the post to head off those misunderstandings at the pass.
FYI I generated an understanding of 5 that was similar enough to Zack’s understanding to also nod along with his post and think “yup, sounds about right”(ish).
5 and 10 do feel like the weakest ones/the ones most likely to earn a rewrite that manages to strengthen them substantially.
But, like. It is specifically because of an anticipation that users like Zack would immediately and enthusiastically leap to recalcitrant strawmanning that I felt I had to post this wholesale as a complete list rather than ask “hey, I’ve got like eight of these I feel good about and two more I need help with; whaddyathink, LW?”
Like, what would’ve allowed a discussion on the merits of 5 and 10 to productively proceed is the prereq of enough-of-something-like-5-and-10 already being in the water (plus maybe a healthy dose of 8 and 9), and I was not at all confident we have that.
I for sure think that a conversation with Julia and Vaniver and Scott, etc., on how to create the better thing that 5 and 10 were trying to point to, would be lovely, and would work.
I don’t think that Zack’s reading is going to be especially representative; I think that a supermajority of people would not independently generate an understanding of 5 that matches his.
(Something different happens if people are given a Multiple Choice question where Zack’s interpretation is one of four or five possible interpretations; there I suspect it is an attractor that would drag more people in. This is most of why it’s important to me that he be understood to not actually be responding to me, rather than to his own strawman.)
If I were to discover that e.g. half of readers interpreted me the way Zack did, this would mean that I urgently needed to rewrite the post to head off those misunderstandings at the pass.
But I don’t currently anticipate that.
FYI I generated an understanding of 5 that was similar enough to Zack’s understanding to also nod along with his post and think “yup, sounds about right”(ish).
5 and 10 do feel like the weakest ones/the ones most likely to earn a rewrite that manages to strengthen them substantially.
But, like. It is specifically because of an anticipation that users like Zack would immediately and enthusiastically leap to recalcitrant strawmanning that I felt I had to post this wholesale as a complete list rather than ask “hey, I’ve got like eight of these I feel good about and two more I need help with; whaddyathink, LW?”
Like, what would’ve allowed a discussion on the merits of 5 and 10 to productively proceed is the prereq of enough-of-something-like-5-and-10 already being in the water (plus maybe a healthy dose of 8 and 9), and I was not at all confident we have that.
I for sure think that a conversation with Julia and Vaniver and Scott, etc., on how to create the better thing that 5 and 10 were trying to point to, would be lovely, and would work.