Many of the early neoconservatives were members of “the family,” Murray Kempton’s apt designation for that disputatious tribe otherwise known as the New York intellectuals. They had come of age in the 1930s at the City College of New York (CCNY), a common destination for smart working-class Jews who otherwise might have attended Ivy League schools, where quotas prohibited much Jewish enrollment until after World War II.
Gertrude Himmelfarb, Irving Kristol, and their milieu learned the art of polemics during years spent in the CCNY cafeteria’s celebrated Alcove No. 1, where young Trotskyists waged ideological warfare against the Communist students who occupied Alcove No. 2. During their flirtations with Trotskyism in the 1930s, when tussles with other radical students seemed like a matter of life and death, future neoconservatives developed habits of mind that never atrophied.
They held on to their combative spirits, their fondness for sweeping declarations, and their suspicion of leftist dogma. Such an epistemological background endowed neoconservatives with what seemed like an intuitive capacity for critiquing New Left arguments. They were uniquely qualified for the job of translating New Left discourses for a conservative movement fervent in its desire to know its enemy.
basically the ideal text length is 1-2 paragraphs where you say your opinion, not longer than that, because longer text easily is perceived as a wall of text, and that’s very exhausting to read.
Basically my ideal piece of text looks like this:
3-5 paragraphs, 1-3 lines each, and 1-2 images strewn into it.
Depends on context I think. For me, on something like Lemmy, a “wall of text” is any comment that I cannot fully read without a need to scroll my phone. If the comment is longer than that, 9 out of 10 times I scroll past without reading it. Ain’t nobody got time for that. There’s also an aspect of a general lack of social awareness that makes me want to discredit whatever is being written.
“walls of text” are anything that’s hard to read because it’s very long, tedious, without a clear format or structure, and mostly boring because it repeats itself in 5 variations without any clear reason.
in separate but related news, high-calorie food is better digested when it’s mixed with lots of low-calorie fiber. relevant link
edit: to clarify, it’s relevant because it’s the same with ideas. “high-impact ideas” are better received when they’re mixed with a lot of low-impact context and examples.
I’m familiar with both the formal and informal versions of this idea. I actually wrote a pretty good essay on it for a communications class like twenty years ago.
Doesn’t change the fact that some ideas simply are not easily or legally conveyed in this format. Many, in fact. Some of them really fucking important. Lefties who got their entire grasp of shit from twitter posts are useful primarily as mass.
You’re an addict defending your brain rot surrender as noble crusade for truth. I won’t scold you for not doing the hardest kind of activism, but dont entrench yourself in the failures of those around you to make space for you and not suck by defining your cope as high morality.
I don’t think message verbosity increases noise in IT; it’s message frequency.
Properly verbose and specific details that accurately describe <whatever> are great. Getting the same message 10 times in 20 minutes makes me ignore messages.
In an ecosystem full of text-based discussions, a single individual putting up an enormous wall of text that fails to engage the reader is often ignored in favor of a number of smaller posts layout out the argument piecemeal.
Also, iterative comments expressing the same view in a few short words can reinforce the idea as popular in the eyes of a reader. A long winded spiel can come across as defensive, by comparison, and weaken the argument in the end.
See, I feel like ‘can read a book every month or so’ isn’t all that much.
That this is considered broadly difficult, much less impossible is terrifying. Something is very very wrong here.
The fact you don’t understand that simple idea despite reading it (I hope reading it) like five times here is not promising. I feel like if we’re just going to keep looping here, I’m done.
See, I feel like ‘can read a book every month or so’ isn’t all that much.
Can’t read a book if you’re wasting all your time online reading posts.
you don’t understand that simple idea despite reading it
What if simple ideas aren’t the best way to view the world? What if you need to understand complex ideas?
But how do you convey complex ideas to a large audience efficiently? Do you drown them in walls of text? Or do you break down the complex ideas into shorter, discrete components?
Think about it this way. Do you read a book all at once, cover to cover, in one sitting? Or do you tackle it by paragraphs and chapters, bit by bit, over an extended period of time?
Some of it is just genuine infighting over orthodoxy and interpretations and whatnot. People be passionate about the holy books
I get it. I’m just saying, keep some perspective on the current stakes.
Without a doubt some of it is stoked by malicious outside actors, as you said
The Neoconservative Counterrevolution
Nobody reads books. Books are for fucking losers. If you suggest people read books you’ll have a very bad time.
i unironically agree. i wrote about it yesterday
basically the ideal text length is 1-2 paragraphs where you say your opinion, not longer than that, because longer text easily is perceived as a wall of text, and that’s very exhausting to read.
Basically my ideal piece of text looks like this:
3-5 paragraphs, 1-3 lines each, and 1-2 images strewn into it.
I always thought walls of text were comments or posts without any paragraphs. Just one block of text.
Depends on context I think. For me, on something like Lemmy, a “wall of text” is any comment that I cannot fully read without a need to scroll my phone. If the comment is longer than that, 9 out of 10 times I scroll past without reading it. Ain’t nobody got time for that. There’s also an aspect of a general lack of social awareness that makes me want to discredit whatever is being written.
“walls of text” are anything that’s hard to read because it’s very long, tedious, without a clear format or structure, and mostly boring because it repeats itself in 5 variations without any clear reason.
You understand that this is not a good state of affairs?
in IT there’s the Signal-to-noise ratio concept. i think verbosity increases the noise, mostly. i try to keep my comments succinct and to the point.
That just means not taking longer to say a thing than necessary.
Some ideas take longer. Short understandings of long ideas can have disastrous results.
in separate but related news, high-calorie food is better digested when it’s mixed with lots of low-calorie fiber. relevant link
edit: to clarify, it’s relevant because it’s the same with ideas. “high-impact ideas” are better received when they’re mixed with a lot of low-impact context and examples.
I’m familiar with both the formal and informal versions of this idea. I actually wrote a pretty good essay on it for a communications class like twenty years ago.
Doesn’t change the fact that some ideas simply are not easily or legally conveyed in this format. Many, in fact. Some of them really fucking important. Lefties who got their entire grasp of shit from twitter posts are useful primarily as mass.
You’re an addict defending your brain rot surrender as noble crusade for truth. I won’t scold you for not doing the hardest kind of activism, but dont entrench yourself in the failures of those around you to make space for you and not suck by defining your cope as high morality.
I don’t think message verbosity increases noise in IT; it’s message frequency.
Properly verbose and specific details that accurately describe <whatever> are great. Getting the same message 10 times in 20 minutes makes me ignore messages.
Separate reply; information theory isn’t ‘from IT’. The inverse is closer to true.
In an ecosystem full of text-based discussions, a single individual putting up an enormous wall of text that fails to engage the reader is often ignored in favor of a number of smaller posts layout out the argument piecemeal.
Also, iterative comments expressing the same view in a few short words can reinforce the idea as popular in the eyes of a reader. A long winded spiel can come across as defensive, by comparison, and weaken the argument in the end.
You’re explaining what is and I’m saying the way this is has me seriously concerned. Its bad. This is bad. It’s the opposite of good.
I’m not confused about what it is. I’m saying the thing you described is bad.
It’s a heuristic for absorbing information that’s predicated on people not having infinite time or attention.
Lots of Wall Of Text posts aren’t actually worth reading.
See, I feel like ‘can read a book every month or so’ isn’t all that much.
That this is considered broadly difficult, much less impossible is terrifying. Something is very very wrong here.
The fact you don’t understand that simple idea despite reading it (I hope reading it) like five times here is not promising. I feel like if we’re just going to keep looping here, I’m done.
Can’t read a book if you’re wasting all your time online reading posts.
What if simple ideas aren’t the best way to view the world? What if you need to understand complex ideas?
But how do you convey complex ideas to a large audience efficiently? Do you drown them in walls of text? Or do you break down the complex ideas into shorter, discrete components?
Think about it this way. Do you read a book all at once, cover to cover, in one sitting? Or do you tackle it by paragraphs and chapters, bit by bit, over an extended period of time?
Zoomies want that influencer Youtube video take on those books
Problem isn’t generational.
It’s definitely one of those things where it’s worse every generation
You didn’t talk to a lot of boomer hippies when they were still alive, did you?
Big fans of Youtube, were they?
Huge. Couldn’t get enough of that shit.
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