Obscurantism

[skykiii]

So there's a concept I learned about a long time ago:

"Obscurantism."

That's basically when you make something sound more complicated than it is, usually by dressing it up with big words or words nobody uses.

Lot's of philosophers do it, as do a lot of political people (for once, not just the left). Seriously any time you read discussions on things like race or sex or the Hooberbloob Highway, there's always a ton of mentions of four-letter syllables or some obscure author nobody has the time to read...

.... And it makes me wonder:

Is it accurate to say "the harder something is to understand, the more likely it is to be bullshit?"

The only exception I can think of might be technology, but even there it tends to be the words that are hard to get. "Measuring the air pressure gauge" for example could easily be reworded as "see how hard the air is blowing." Suddenly that makes sense.

Of course the other problem is people like to dress things up because it gives them an unwarranted feeling of intelligence that they know a bunch of big four-syllable words--like, say, "obscurantism" (but I told you what that means, so ha, cat's out of the bag!)--or because if they admit something is actually pretty simple, then its suddenly not even that impressive they know it.

And again, it comes up a lot in political debates. I'm sure anyone who has watched a Contrapoints video (one wonders when she's gonna update her name to be Alien Wars Points, or even Hard Corps Points) has had to listen to meaningless word vomit that never comes to a point but sure sounds intelligent... if you had any idea what she was saying!

Maybe we as a species should adopt a new rule:

"in 90% of cases, talk to other people as if they're ten years old and can't be expected to know the things you know."

(.... And then a tranny starts talking to you as if they wanna fuck you, because that's how they read that rule).

 

[KittyGremlin]

Maybe we as a species should adopt a new rule:

"in 90% of cases, talk to other people as if they're ten years old and can't be expected to know the things you know."

There was a time when we weren't so confined in our echo chambers that this was obvious.

And again, it comes up a lot in political debates. I'm sure anyone who has watched a Contrapoints video (one wonders when she's gonna update her name to be Alien Wars Points, or even Hard Corps Points) has had to listen to meaningless word vomit that never comes to a point but sure sounds intelligent... if you had any idea what she was saying!

>she

pls no.

 

[skykiii]

>she

pls no.

That was a typo. Or I wasn't fully awake.

 

[BirdUp]

people use political or philosophical jargon to feel like they're part of an in-group or if they have nothing concrete to say
the only exception ive seen is kaczynski's anti-tech revolution where he was just too academic to express anything simply

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Is it accurate to say "the harder something is to understand, the more likely it is to be bullshit?"

It's not just accurate, it's the rule. If a concept can't be explain in a paragraph to someone who has a basic education/experience at its field, then it is absolutely bullshit.

 

[AnsemSoD1]

That's just a fancy term for word salad.

 

[Astro Loafo]

I mean it depends. Since politics and philosophy are discussed in different class and procedure. It's how court and law speak is different from normal and online speak.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

Sometimes the words are complicated and unusual because of a trade off of simplicity for precision. As in your "Measuring the air pressure gauge" example, it is worded like that to ensure maximum precision in the comprehension by experts who need to be sure of what is being said and explained.

However you are right that a lot of the time people will over-complicate things without a need to make themselves sound smarter or mislead others. It's particularly big with midwits who insist they are smarter than they actually are because they have a degree.

 

[888Flux]

A genius admires simplicity, an idiot admires complexity

- Terry A. Davis

 

[LatinasAreTheFuture]

Yes, the more simple the explanation the more likely it is correct. Ptolemy needed a complex set of epicycles to explain the same thing that newton could do with a few simple equations. The main thing is to find some phenomena that occurs in two different and unrelated places, this is evidence that something is going on

 

[SacredChao]

Is it accurate to say "the harder something is to understand, the more likely it is to be bullshit?"

Not at all. Just break the concept down into simpler terms if you have to. Just coping that something is too hard to grasp so it must be bullshit is retarded. There are a lot of things that are true and verifiable that are hard to understand. Like wave-particle duality. How the fuck can a thing act like both? Makes no sense to us on our scale, but we can directly observe it at the quantum level. And sometimes concepts might be difficult to grasp, but with greater education it starts falling into place. Following the mindset of "this hard so it stoopid" is how you find your way to the peak of Mount Dunning-Kruger.

If you're dealing with some sort of woo and wordplay/word salad that's easy enough to break down by getting a dictionary or googling what the words mean. And easy enough to show is a bunch of bullshit. But to mistake your inability to grasp X and jumping to the conclusion that if you can't grasp it then it's dumb is absolutely ridiculous. I don't think it's very smart to simultaneously say you don't understand a thing, but then conclude that your ignorance of that thing makes it stupid. You should at least understand what is being said and claimed before you call it bullshit. Making that claim while also admitting ignorance just makes you look like a brainlet.

 

[skykiii]

Not at all. Just break the concept down into simpler terms if you have to. Just coping that something is too hard to grasp so it must be bullshit is retarded. There are a lot of things that are true and verifiable that are hard to understand. Like wave-particle duality. How the fuck can a thing act like both? Makes no sense to us on our scale, but we can directly observe it at the quantum level. And sometimes concepts might be difficult to grasp, but with greater education it starts falling into place. Following the mindset of "this hard so it stoopid" is how you find your way to the peak of Mount Dunning-Kruger.

If you're dealing with some sort of woo and wordplay/word salad that's easy enough to break down by getting a dictionary or googling what the words mean. And easy enough to show is a bunch of bullshit. But to mistake your inability to grasp X and jumping to the conclusion that if you can't grasp it then it's dumb is absolutely ridiculous. I don't think it's very smart to simultaneously say you don't understand a thing, but then conclude that your ignorance of that thing makes it stupid. You should at least understand what is being said and claimed before you call it bullshit. Making that claim while also admitting ignorance just makes you look like a brainlet.

Sorry this is a late response... if you've seen my other posts on KF you can tell my brain has been elsewhere.

And yeah, you're right, its entirely possible to take this too far and end up being basically "I don't understand thermal expansion therefore it can't be real."

Thing is though, I think its a two part problem. Part one is, as always, the onus on the individual to realize their own limitations (which a lot of people will of course have trouble with). Like I can generally tell the difference between "there's something to this but its lost on me" and "this is gobbledegook."

But another thing one might want to keep aware of is the degree of obscurantism present. Someone's statement uses a few big words or obscure terms? If I can still suss out their meaning, it might be fine. The real tell, I find, is when you start asking questions and the explanations get more and more convoluted until it reads like something out of the handbook of the Marvel universe or a list of D&D Errata. Usually that's the point where I realize someone is full of it.

 

[CowPox]

While obscurantism can indeed be a tool for intellectual posturing, dismissing the complexity of certain subjects as "bullshit" solely based on difficulty is an oversimplification. Fields like philosophy or advanced sciences may require intricate terminology to convey nuanced concepts accurately. It's important to differentiate between deliberate obfuscation and the necessity of using specialized language in specific domains. Simplifying everything may risk losing the depth of understanding certain topics demand. Effective communication involves discernment, acknowledging when complexity serves a purpose and when it's used to veil meaning. It also acts a a excellent means of gatekeeping unwanted faggots from the scene etc.

 

[Foghotten]

Not viewing obscurantism primarily as a gatekeeping tool is doing yourself a disservice IMO. It's less about fields abusing this being bullshit or filled with midwits, and more about those fields being flooded with self-serving, smug fucks corrupting established knowledge to effectively burn bridges and artificially make themselves more desirable/more powerful (and maybe using midwits as convenient pawns to muddy the field further).

Here's an example with linguistics: a field most affected by this, ironically. It's very common for terminology to perpetually shift every 5-10 years or so, or have up to five different designations for no reason other than petty autistic clout wars between masters and PhDs at the expense of everybody lower on the chain. It's a field that should have mastered the art of synthetizing data and defining its theories, concepts and findings in stone, and yet, amateurs outside of academia adhere better to the KISS principle, and manage to teach people better than actual professionals in the field. It's easier learning languages and phonology/phonetics off children's workbooks and advanced-ish books than from an actual linguistic degree holder.

It's kind of easy knowing why linguistic knowledge is kept away from the common man and made unappealing: it's a huge gateway to oratory, abstract thinking, philosophy, and neuro-linguistic programming; it'd actually empower people against scammers and the retards in charge. Hell, many linguistic institutions barely even hide their contempt for the common man: I remember the French Academy having once made statements about deliberately splitting people into linguistic castes.

You can leverage people's ignorance. It's harder to leverage knowledgeable people, however.