Life is an iterative game. You fail one day, you pick yourself up and try again the next one. The very act of trying makes you better at it. (For example by having a better internal model of what other people might think of a given text.)
> I know I'm a reasonable or adequate communicator, it's just that I'm not an excellent one.
For whatever it is worth I find what you write perfectly clear.
> I've noticed during heated debates on HN that the total of my votes can fluctuate wildly in both directions and finally end up close to zero.
Oh i see! Controversial subjects be controversial. I don't think aiming for "non-controversialness" is a worthy goal in itself. Of course one should pick their battles, but I wouldn't take that as a sign that there is anything wrong with how you communicate. You are not going to convince everyone, every time about everything. If you could, we would probably call that geas not communication anyway. :)
> They were so good they would spellbind their audiences.
I'm not familiar with the names you mention, but I will check them out. Thank you for the recommendation.
I still think we have spellbinding orators who discuss current public issues. I would count Adam Conover or Jordan Peterson as such for example. (and here I intentionally picked ones ideologically far from each other.) Now of course since I don't know your examples I can't judge how they measure up to them.
"Oh i see! Controversial subjects be controversial. I don't think aiming for "non-controversialness" is a worthy goal in itself."
First, thank you for your reply.
See, your comment clearly shows that there was a significant communications failure on my part because I failed to get my message across with accuracy. In fact, my failure was so bad that it deserves to be awarded close to 0/10 because you interpreted the opposite meaning to my intent.
As an old phil. student I make a clear distinction between formal argument as found in say Book I of Plato's Republic and that which now goes for general debate on say HN or Twitter. My point had nothing to do with being non-controvertial, in fact formal argument is usually just the opposite, subjects are often very controversial indeed.
Both Russell and Taylor would never have let an error of misjudging their audience to that extent slip through, they would have prefaced their discussions with explanations to avoid confusion. Here, I failed to do that by assuming that everyone was on my 'wavelength' and had the same understandings (definitions) as I have.
"I'm not familiar with the names you mention, but I will check them out. Thank you for the recommendation."
There's also part 3 and many more like them if you wish.
"I still think we have spellbinding orators who discuss current public issues. I would count Adam Conover or Jordan Peterson as such for example."
No doubt there are but they aren't as widely known nor as well respected by friend and foe
alike as those who've I've mentioned. They were intellectual superstars before intellectual became a dirty word, they were known to everyone as well as we know the name 'Einstein' today.
Life is an iterative game. You fail one day, you pick yourself up and try again the next one. The very act of trying makes you better at it. (For example by having a better internal model of what other people might think of a given text.)
> I know I'm a reasonable or adequate communicator, it's just that I'm not an excellent one.
For whatever it is worth I find what you write perfectly clear.
> I've noticed during heated debates on HN that the total of my votes can fluctuate wildly in both directions and finally end up close to zero.
Oh i see! Controversial subjects be controversial. I don't think aiming for "non-controversialness" is a worthy goal in itself. Of course one should pick their battles, but I wouldn't take that as a sign that there is anything wrong with how you communicate. You are not going to convince everyone, every time about everything. If you could, we would probably call that geas not communication anyway. :)
> They were so good they would spellbind their audiences.
I'm not familiar with the names you mention, but I will check them out. Thank you for the recommendation.
I still think we have spellbinding orators who discuss current public issues. I would count Adam Conover or Jordan Peterson as such for example. (and here I intentionally picked ones ideologically far from each other.) Now of course since I don't know your examples I can't judge how they measure up to them.