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Noahpinion's profile
Noah Smith
Noah Smith
Noah Smith
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@Noahpinion

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Noah SmithVerified account

@Noahpinion

Bloomberg Opinion writer. Elected "top neoliberal shill" of 2018. Occasionally posts anime gifs.

San Francisco, CA
bloomberg.com/view/contribut…
Joined April 2011

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    Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13

    Noah Smith Retweeted Jeffrey Sachs

    This thread demonstrates that a lot of academic writing that *looks* like utter nonsense is merely scholars dressing up a useful but mundane point with a ton of unnecessary jargon.https://twitter.com/JeffreyASachs/status/1051097280030396417 …

    Noah Smith added,

    Jeffrey Sachs @JeffreyASachs
    Imagine for a moment the most obscurantist, jargon-filled, po-mo article the politically correct academy might produce. Pure SJW nonsense. Got it? Chances are you're imagining something like the infamous "Feminist Glaciology" article from a few years back. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0309132515623368 … pic.twitter.com/qtSFBYY80S
    Show this thread
    11:03 AM - 13 Oct 2018
    • 69 Retweets
    • 286 Likes
    • C. Kirabo Jackson Some guy named Matt Matt Garden Josh Smith Amanda Kolson Hurley 🍂 Donkeyboy Donks Benjamin Pulanco Remorse and Regrets Chris (Robotbeat)🗽🖖🏾
    21 replies 69 retweets 286 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13

        My theory is that the jargon creates an artificial barrier to entry. http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/academic-bs-as-artificial-barriers-to.html … If one must spend years marinating one's brain in jargon to be perceived as an expert on a topic, it protects the status and earning power of people who study relatively easy topics.

        20 replies 42 retweets 218 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13

        In econ, a similar thing is accomplished by what recent Nobel prize winner Paul Romer calls "mathiness": https://paulromer.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Mathiness.pdf … But mathiness and jargon are not quite the same...

        4 replies 7 retweets 48 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13

        Jargon usually doesn't force you to change the substance of your central point. Mathiness often does. By forcing you to write your model in a way that's mathematically tractable (easy to work with), mathiness often impoverishes your understanding of how the world really works.

        10 replies 11 retweets 64 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13

        @Undercoverhist has written about this problem:https://beatricecherrier.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/what-price-did-economists-pay-for-tractability/ …

        1 reply 8 retweets 27 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13

        Jargon sounds sillier than mathiness. It looks worse to the public, because most of the public thinks they should be able to understand English but doesn't assume they can understand math. But mathiness, ultimately, is probably more pernicious. (end)

        18 replies 18 retweets 76 likes
        Show this thread
      7. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Richard Heppner 🙇‍♂️‏ @RLHeppner Oct 13
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        One person's jargon is another person's precision. The key to good writing is to be as clear as possible, but no clearer. Making complex points sound simple is just as misleading (maybe more misleading) than the opposite.

        2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      3. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13
        Replying to @RLHeppner

        That's why jargon works so well as obscurantism. Even if there's a way to express the exact same point in simple language without losing any meaning, an insider can credibly claim that there is no such way, and shake his head at any attempted paraphrase.

        2 replies 0 retweets 9 likes
      4. Richard Heppner 🙇‍♂️‏ @RLHeppner Oct 13
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        Right. The difficulty lies in knowing where to draw the line, i.e., when a concept actually cannott be made any simpler. We don't want all writing to be like the xkcd Up Goer Five, written with only the 100 most common words). https://xkcd.com/1133/ 

        2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      5. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13
        Replying to @RLHeppner

        Right. If all jargon were transparent, it wouldn't work very well as a barrier-to-entry, right? That's why you need insiders to critique the jargon; outsiders will only ever have suspicions.

        2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
      6. Richard Heppner 🙇‍♂️‏ @RLHeppner Oct 13
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        Right! Too much jargon is a barrier-to-entry. But that's not the only function of jargon. Sometimes its necessary to use specialized language to capture specialized ideas.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      7. Richard Heppner 🙇‍♂️‏ @RLHeppner Oct 13
        Replying to @RLHeppner @Noahpinion

        As evidenced by the first word of our tweets, we agree here. We're just placing different emphasis on the point where we agree. The tricky question is whether certain fields cross the line between specialization-for-clarity and obscurantism-for-exclusivity more often than others.

        1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes
      8. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13
        Replying to @RLHeppner

        Yeah. And also, I think a lot of people tend to assume that academic bullshit comes with large social costs. But I wonder if confining bullshit to academia actually protects the real world from bad ideas! ;-)

        1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
      9. Richard Heppner 🙇‍♂️‏ @RLHeppner Oct 13
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        Me looking at business-jargon and corporate-speak:pic.twitter.com/0rO4WWB391

        0 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      10. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. kevin grier‏ @ez_angus Oct 13
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        that was a heroic attempt, but nah.

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      3. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13
        Replying to @ez_angus

        ?

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      4. kevin grier‏ @ez_angus Oct 13
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        Guy in the thread trying really hard but I'm not buying what he's selling

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      5. Noah Smith‏Verified account @Noahpinion Oct 13
        Replying to @ez_angus

        Why not?

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      6. kevin grier‏ @ez_angus Oct 14
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        Occam's razor

        0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      7. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Michael Hicks‏ @HicksCBER Oct 13
        Replying to @Noahpinion

        As an academic, the best way to cleanse your own writing is to co-author with someone outside your field. My work with sociologists, accountants, management, medicine and political scientists have the most de-jargonizing and helpful experiences of my career.

        1 reply 7 retweets 59 likes
      3. 1 more reply

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