When things don't make sense to observers, they tend to groundlessly take that to mean those things don't make sense [full stop]. So the observers suppose that the things have to be replaced with things that do make sense both /to/ the them and /for/ those many purposes.
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But in reality, it was a groundless conflation, those things already made sense /for/ those many purposes, they just didn't make sense /to/ them.
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In reality, they'll be replacing the old things with new things that make more sense /to/ them but less sense /for/ those many purposes. They'll reliably make more sense /to/ the observers, but they won't reliably make any sense (mildly or catastrophically) /for/ those purposes.
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"making sense to observers" is what they mean by "Legibility"... "Effectiveness" might be the counterpart "making sense [full stop]". i wonder if id've gotten something meatier if i actually read the book
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Meatier takeaway: it's Chesterton's fence with much heavier constraints. Social & ecological systems are the result of at least thousands of years of evolution, and evolution is likely to produce systems that are very effective in very illegible ways.
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So by default, we should expect that significant interventions in these systems that undermine evolved processes will result in poorer outcomes, and wherever the bar for intervention is, it ought to be correspondingly higher.
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Wonder how right this sentiment is, though.
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Replying to @androgynandre
It's quite wrong actually. Illegibility/authoritarian high modernism is a critical-analytical lens, not a normative one. I think Chesterton's Fence (which is basically what you're talking about with 'higher bar') is basically wrong.
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Replying to @vgr
Andre Retweeted Andre
But the opposition to high modernism you describe has to be justified by Chesterton's Fence (or this stronger version of it) doesn't it?https://twitter.com/androgynandre/status/1078177845610979329 …
Andre added,
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Replying to @androgynandre @vgr
Otherwise, why trust that the system as it is (i.e. its natural status quo) is more reliable for your purpose (e.g. welfare, stability) than some legible alternative a planner comes up with?
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I think this leads to uncritical lindyism and it becomes gradually impossible to do anything new at all as the incumbent systems become too incomprehensible to grok at all, which means impossible to justifiably displace. I prefer the Gordian knot as the right right allegory here.
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Replying to @vgr
Right, this was the source of my skepticism. It came off like they were endorsing it by suggesting that even planning cultures that swear by the "model ≠ territory" gospel (in theory) like choice architecture are still high modernist auth.
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Replying to @androgynandre @vgr
So, in practice, no matter the methodological principles they avow, we better assume they're overwriting coherence with legibility—a dangerous practice. I was skeptical but thought you had some reason left unsaid.
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