I've noticed a trend among the rationalist movement of favoring long and convoluted articles referencing other long and convoluted articles--the more inaccessible to the general public, the better.
I don't want to contend that there's anything inherently wrong with such articles, I contend precisely the opposite: there's nothing inherently wrong with short and direct articles.
One example of significant simplicity is Einstein's famous E=mc2 paper (Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?), which is merely three pages long.
Can anyone contend that Einstein's paper is either not significant or not straightforward?
It is also generally understood among writers that it's difficult to explain complex concepts in a simple way. And programmers do favor simpler code, and often transform complex code into simpler versions that achieve the same functionality in a process called code refactoring. Guess what... refactoring takes substantial effort.
The art of compressing complex ideas into succinct phrases is valued by the general population, and proof of that are quotes and memes.
“One should use common words to say uncommon things” ― Arthur Schopenhauer
There is power in simplicity.
One example of simple ideas with extreme potential is Karl Popper's notion of falsifiability: don't try to prove your beliefs, try to disprove them. That simple principle solves important problems in epistemology, such as the problem of induction and the problem of demarcation. And you don't need to understand all the philosophy behind this notion, only that many white swans don't prove the proposition that all swans are white, but a single black swan does disprove it. So it's more profitable to look for black swans.
And we can use simple concepts to defend the power of simplicity.
We can use falsifiability to explain that many simple ideas being unconsequential doesn't prove the claim that all simple ideas are inconsequential, but a single consequential idea that is simple does disprove it.
Therefore I've proved that simple notions can be important.
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Notes -
Falsifiability is a good thing. Make your beliefs pay rent, eh? Or, for a less normative example, see Belief in Belief. Carl Sagan’s point is quite easily summarized: why should I care about the proverbial invisible, intangible, non-interactive dragon in my garage? Yet even he chose to frame it in a narrative.
Consider this line from another Eliezer post:
So why might Carl Sagan have chosen a parable, rather than a minimum-length sentence, to encode his observation? He compressed a heroic number of assumptions into simple language. Today I can think “oh, that’s an invisible dragon,” and get immediate intuition on the subject. Even better, I can say it out loud! If you’re familiar with the story, it’s a very efficient exchange. If not, I can give you a link, adding Carl’s encoding to your repertoire.
This is why the early rationalist community was…enthusiastic…about recommending the Sequences. Well, this plus all the social dynamics that apply to any clique. It is efficient compression. It provides a scaffolding on which others can work.
Scott, back in his Yvain days, wrote a response to that Eliezer comment.
I’m throwing in all these links not (just) because I expect it to annoy you, but because I find it amusing that you’ve done all this work to agree with some blog posts from 2008. Why? What’s your angle? What rent are you getting from “simple notions can be important?”
Frankly, it sounds like you’ve got another variable floating around. An extra concept, telling you that “simple notions can be important” is, in turn, important enough to evangelize. It’s certainly simple. But I think it’s also separate from most of the things you might normally use to decide whether one blog post is generally more deserving of accolades than another.
Simplicity has value. It may be sufficient…yet I can’t say, with confidence, that it necessary.
True to OP's point, your comment is unnecessarily long.
>encode his observation
>compressed a heroric number of assumptions
He's telling a story to get his point across.
That's it. That's all it took to make the same point, which is obvious. The midwittery here is incredible.
And your namecalling and antagonism is not acceptable. Don't do this.
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Who cares if you find it amusing?
It has not been established that I did agree with that litany of articles you linked, you just stated that. And how is anyone supposed to refute your claim? Presumably they would need to spend around 8 hours to read all that information, and then refute it, which you know nobody is going to do.
So you intentionally raised the bar so high as to make your claim virtually irrefutable. Congratulations, you "win".
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