Comment by eloisius
3 hours ago
This makes is sound like everything except a narrow slice of “creative forms” should be subject to a giant efficiency optimization. I’ve never noticed instruction manuals to be hard to understand because of colorful language, so I don’t believe we need to optimize further in that regard. Why stop with language? Shouldn’t every personality outside of “creative forms” be more standardized? Sure I want to laugh at comedians, but wouldn’t it be more efficient for us to work together if everyone had a totally fungible personality?
Engineers often reduce human interaction and creativity down to computer analogs like “exchanging data,” treat work and business as life’s raison d’etre and then we wonder why every car on the road is monochrome and we’re on the umpteenth Gardian of the Avangers film.
I completely agree with your critique here but I will say that I have had difficulty understanding pure math texts because of 'colorful' language -- e.g. "chattier" treatments of mathematical analysis. But I will also say that I'm glad such treatments of the material exist, partly because I know that what appeals to me doesn't appeal to others and these might be a valued resource for them, and because often pushing through and understanding texts that were difficult at first helps us to see the material from a different perspective. I think this optimization perspective squashes this possibility a bit when taken too far, as it usually is
Think of how much money we could make if we weren't wasting so much time being creative.
There’s no universal answer. Like most things it’s highly subjective and some people will want the standardization line to be in a particular place than someone else. I for instance, love the standardization of programming and science research for the most part into one language but at the same time, I also feel terrible about languages that are hundreds or thousands of years old disappearing forever.