Ironically, this shows that you are still deep in the “societal status quo that rids children of agency.” Any English sentence that is parsable by a median adult is parsable by a smart twelve-year-old.
Ah, okay. I interpreted “written for adults who already have some exposure to our culture” as “exposure to [our society’s] culture,” which would include the median adult, but I see now that you actually meant “exposure to [rationalist] culture,” which would not include the median adult.
I still disagree with the sentiment though. A smart 12-year-old even with no exposure to rationalist culture should be able to understand the sentence in context. To a first approximation, he is just like me and you but has never seen the word “agency” used in this way, so we can put ourselves in his shoes by imagining the passage said this:
Respect yourself in the past, present, and future. Don’t make excuses for being young. Even if you, the reader, are currently 4 years old, don’t let adults make excuses on your behalf. “Age is just a number” is not true, but is directionally correct compared to the societal status quo that rids children of dealership. You can start setting the foundations for the life you want today, no matter how young you are. Childhood doesn’t have to be all fun and games (fun and games are good, but they can also continue your entire life)! Start planning the life you want by thinking freely in your own head. You can beat others by starting earlier because you respect yourself and haven’t fallen for the “children aren’t people”-style propaganda.
On reading this, we are struck by the word “dealership” which is clearly being used in some unusual way, but we can still understand the passage more or less completely. The “dealership” sentence in particular is conceding that being young comes with real limitations, but it asserts that these limitations are weaker than is commonly believed. We realize that we don’t really need to know what “dealership” means in this context, and it’s kind of obvious anyway from the surrounding text, but we’re feeling motivated so we paste it into Google. Under the main definition, there is a secondary one: “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.” Ah, that must be it. “rids children of dealership” = “imagines children lack the capacity to exert power.” Ok, that was kind of a waste; we already got that from the rest of the passage. But whatever, it was worth the 30 seconds to learn some new vocabulary. Maybe it will help us in the future.
Was that really so bad?
Now imagine a 40-year-old comes along and tells us, “I feel like this article isn’t written for 27-year-olds like yourselves. It’s written for 40-year-olds who already have some exposure to 4chan (the ‘dealership’ jargon is popular on the /biz/ board). I was pretty smart at 27, but I don’t imagine being able to understand that sentence back then. I think it would be more suitable for you guys if we rewrote it like this: <insert simplified version with lot of examples>.”
I’m not claiming your changes aren’t an improvement. But if they are, it’s because they make the passage clearer in general, not because they reduce it from adult-level complexity to something even a lowly 12-year-old can understand.
You’re mostly right about the “culture” interpretation. I was deliberately vague here since I’m not completely sure exactly what the broadest culture that uses terms like “agency” and “directionally correct” is. Is it rationalists? TPOT? Tech workers in the Bay Area? But in any case, I did mean some sort of niche culture that the median adult is not in.
I noticed two terms that a 12-year-old or median adult may be unfamiliar with (“directionally correct” and “agency”) which usually triggers my alarm bells—imo you can use one unfamiliar term in a sentence (as you just very thoroughly showed) but two is harder. (I also noticed “status quo”, but I think the median adult may already know what that is, so a smart 12-year-old could know that too) That said, it is true that a motivated 12-year-old or median adult could figure out how to parse that sentence, even if it wasn’t on the first reading. And “directionally correct” is probably easier to determine from context than “agency” is, so your example uses the harder of the two.
I also think I may have incorrectly specified what I meant, too. When I said: “I don’t imagine being able to understand that sentence when I was a kid”, I meant more “If I read that sentence, I wouldn’t know what it meant” as opposed to “I would be unable to understand that sentence even if I spent five minutes trying”. I recognise my phrasing seems to imply the latter more than the former.
I don’t think “directionally correct” is a standalone concept. It’s just normal usage of the words “directionally” and “correct,” so you understand it automatically if you understand those words.
I suppose I can’t point to anything clearly false in your original post, especially with these clarifications, but I’m still left with a feeling that you would not have written it if you fully appreciated the extent to which a smart twelve-year-old is the same kind of thing as us.
The article is objectively easy to read, give or take an awkward sentence or obscure word. I’m fairly confident that if we had 12-year-old you read this article, then told him that future you had declared the article “isn’t written for children,” he would be amused at your impression of him.
Ironically, this shows that you are still deep in the “societal status quo that rids children of agency.” Any English sentence that is parsable by a median adult is parsable by a smart twelve-year-old.
While I agree with your second sentence, I don’t think that sentence is parsable by a median adult.
Ah, okay. I interpreted “written for adults who already have some exposure to our culture” as “exposure to [our society’s] culture,” which would include the median adult, but I see now that you actually meant “exposure to [rationalist] culture,” which would not include the median adult.
I still disagree with the sentiment though. A smart 12-year-old even with no exposure to rationalist culture should be able to understand the sentence in context. To a first approximation, he is just like me and you but has never seen the word “agency” used in this way, so we can put ourselves in his shoes by imagining the passage said this:
On reading this, we are struck by the word “dealership” which is clearly being used in some unusual way, but we can still understand the passage more or less completely. The “dealership” sentence in particular is conceding that being young comes with real limitations, but it asserts that these limitations are weaker than is commonly believed. We realize that we don’t really need to know what “dealership” means in this context, and it’s kind of obvious anyway from the surrounding text, but we’re feeling motivated so we paste it into Google. Under the main definition, there is a secondary one: “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.” Ah, that must be it. “rids children of dealership” = “imagines children lack the capacity to exert power.” Ok, that was kind of a waste; we already got that from the rest of the passage. But whatever, it was worth the 30 seconds to learn some new vocabulary. Maybe it will help us in the future.
Was that really so bad?
Now imagine a 40-year-old comes along and tells us, “I feel like this article isn’t written for 27-year-olds like yourselves. It’s written for 40-year-olds who already have some exposure to 4chan (the ‘dealership’ jargon is popular on the /biz/ board). I was pretty smart at 27, but I don’t imagine being able to understand that sentence back then. I think it would be more suitable for you guys if we rewrote it like this: <insert simplified version with lot of examples>.”
I’m not claiming your changes aren’t an improvement. But if they are, it’s because they make the passage clearer in general, not because they reduce it from adult-level complexity to something even a lowly 12-year-old can understand.
You’re mostly right about the “culture” interpretation. I was deliberately vague here since I’m not completely sure exactly what the broadest culture that uses terms like “agency” and “directionally correct” is. Is it rationalists? TPOT? Tech workers in the Bay Area? But in any case, I did mean some sort of niche culture that the median adult is not in.
I noticed two terms that a 12-year-old or median adult may be unfamiliar with (“directionally correct” and “agency”) which usually triggers my alarm bells—imo you can use one unfamiliar term in a sentence (as you just very thoroughly showed) but two is harder. (I also noticed “status quo”, but I think the median adult may already know what that is, so a smart 12-year-old could know that too) That said, it is true that a motivated 12-year-old or median adult could figure out how to parse that sentence, even if it wasn’t on the first reading. And “directionally correct” is probably easier to determine from context than “agency” is, so your example uses the harder of the two.
I also think I may have incorrectly specified what I meant, too. When I said: “I don’t imagine being able to understand that sentence when I was a kid”, I meant more “If I read that sentence, I wouldn’t know what it meant” as opposed to “I would be unable to understand that sentence even if I spent five minutes trying”. I recognise my phrasing seems to imply the latter more than the former.
I don’t think “directionally correct” is a standalone concept. It’s just normal usage of the words “directionally” and “correct,” so you understand it automatically if you understand those words.
I suppose I can’t point to anything clearly false in your original post, especially with these clarifications, but I’m still left with a feeling that you would not have written it if you fully appreciated the extent to which a smart twelve-year-old is the same kind of thing as us.
The article is objectively easy to read, give or take an awkward sentence or obscure word. I’m fairly confident that if we had 12-year-old you read this article, then told him that future you had declared the article “isn’t written for children,” he would be amused at your impression of him.