An old friend here was communicating and reminded me of a pet peeve that I've spoken about before but have spent quite a bit of time thinking about within the last month.
He asked whether something that I was told something along the lines of "you said a lot of words without conveying meaning" when referring to something in the post I wrote about The Tunneler Hypothesis was possibly due to a little too much "Word Salad".
I told him that this did not appear to be the case to me. I went back and read it after it sitting there for a couple of years and it seemed to have meaning and be clear to me. You would think after it sitting there that long that when I came back I would notice.
With that said. I am VERY verbose. I speak a lot. Perhaps in some cases SOME people may think even too much.
You do notice this isn't twitter right? I don't have this character limit telling me I must try to cram deep thoughts and discussions into a small number of characters. This is why I write in places like this.
We are in an age of TLDR. TLDR (Too long didn't read) to me is a form of "Virtue Signalling". I am going to tell people about how technically I was too damn lazy to read. I'm going to spin it like a virtuous and amusing thing by saying TLDR. Sometimes I might go a step further and talk about the thing I didn't read.
To me TLDR is an admission of laziness. It is the sign of a fool trying to spin their foolishness as virtue. If you truly don't want to read something because it is too long. Don't. Move on. Don't brag about it. Don't start talking about it after you didn't read it.
Each of us can look at the length of something and say "I don't have time for that" to ourselves and move on. Time is valuable and precious.
We should not however expect people to dish out content that fits our personal desires. That is unrealistic and a little bit of arrogance and narcissism rolled up into one.
Now what if you are reading something and they say so much you get lost. Do you blame them? Is it their fault you did not understand? Do you accuse them of word salad, and/or writing a bunch of words that lacked meaning? Do you ever stop to think maybe that meaning was there and you just don't see it? Or is it always the other persons problem?
My job is not to cater to your whims. I do like it when more people can relate to my works and my words. However, I know that no two people are alike and I cannot please everyone. I also know that trying to please a certain group will leave me crippled, hobbled, and miserable. If you cannot understand the words I use. Fine, you do not have to read them. I won't be angry. On the other hand if you say TLDR and start talking about it or you say what I wrote had no meaning then I'm likely to call you out on it.
When I read Legal documents my mind trips all over itself and my eyes cross. The same can happen with some white papers and scientific documents. I definitely don't accuse them of using a lot of words that convey no meaning simply because I didn't quickly grasp the meaning. Instead when dealing with those things I have to slow down and spend a lot more time trying to ingest them than I usually do. This is not their fault. It is simply an alien form of communication to my mind. My mind has not been conditioned through practice to understand it quickly.
Now I could say "Ahhh... law speak!" and refuse to read it. I'd learn nothing.
People need to spend a little more time looking into mirrors and doing some introspection when they feel the need to accuse others.