The internet’s fifth man (2013)
economist.com
economist.com
I agree with him that we need to keep iterating the foundations of the internet and keep it open and protect against the corporate takeover. I'm not sure how best to do that so I guess all I can do is work on my small areas of influence at work and in my personal projects.
Agreed! Why is that the style today?
I've heard it has something to do with SEO but I'm unsure how, or if there are other reasons.
This trend makes my skimming habit so much worse, because it actually justifies skipping ahead to meaningful words.
Totally true, but I think that's not what's happening. Yesterday an HN post was made about this https://lithub.com/the-wolves-of-stanislav-an-improbably-tru... It's carefully written to be like that, it's verbose by design, and I started skimming then closed it. I don't know why these timewaster articles are produced either, but it's not accident or laziness. Plenty irritating though.
Print media editors necessarily have to constrain length, and authors learned to write accordingly. Nowadays, a lot of writing is unconstrained either by physical limits or editors.
The specific example you give appears to be intentionally literary in intent, and so conciseness is not necessarily a prime virtue. When authors were paid by the word, prolixity was effectively encouraged, and this is obvious in some of Poe's work.
Then there's the old aphorism: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
We want to claim that style obfuscates content. However, simplicity can also be a style that obfuscates content by its nature, just as much as any other, maybe sometimes more than any other.
Maybe the problem is we want to implicitly assume that communication styles are simply accretions around the true message which exists in non-physical being, and if we could just 'read minds', everything would be perfect, and as with Gnosticism, the 'Truth' gets weighed down with the sin of physicality (wrapped up in words in this case). So we try to be verbal ascetics, throwing our sentences, rather than our bodies, in the ovens to strip flesh. When in reality the words do not convey like boxcars carrying grain, but are the thing in themselves and solely such. So maybe this ends up back at a kind of radical materialism, a world were nothing is backed by the pure truth of God (or, in this case, 'pure information').
Of course not, but I doubt that it is entirely coincidental that the article here is from a well-established print journal.
> However, simplicity can also be a style that obfuscates content by its nature.
Occasionally, in response to an editorial mandate, I have condensed something to the point where even I have difficulty following it after some time has passed. The point here, however, is that this article is both concise and clear.
> When in reality the words do not convey like boxcars carrying grain...
Indeed; if they did, style would not be an issue, and grammar would not be a thing.
>... but are the thing in themselves and solely such.
Words in themselves are nothing without an accepted vocabulary.
"it was a sunny May afternoon in the office of Dr. Whoever, where the cobblestones in the entrance glinted the fading sunlight. When Dr. Whoever was a boy, his father would take him out fishing..." ... and rambles on with meaningless details, containing perhaps a handful of passages in the article that are actually relevant to what the title promised me.
Perhaps a clearer example is when you find a recipe online. You will find pages of how the recipe has been in the family for ages, and how the author's family is delighted with it, and the innumerous and unproven health benefits it has, and how it's so easy to make, etc. The actual recipe is half a page.
You may be correct, but considering the author's long career and standing, you should consider the possibility that the issue here is your personal taste rather than the merits of the writer.
The article you link to is obviously supposed to be a personal story told with some literary flare, not a concise journalistic report.
If you really lack this bare minimum of genre sensitivity then, well, no wonder you think there is a lot of bad writing.
Also sloppy literary self indulgences: "And whether they were there or not, I choose to believe in the wolves"
In other contexts such as actual physical survival, reality matters 100% and ignoring it can get you killed.
I'm baffled by this statement. I really think you must be fundamentally failing to grasp the genre of this particular piece of writing. It's not a lonely planet guide.
What is the genre here that gives it a pass? If it's fiction anything goes but this is supposed to be historical investigation. Therefore facts matter. Disagree?
Although if I recall correctly the sollipism really fell out of favor with the George W. Bush administration and that aspect has been in decline since.
That given the question about factual journalism appears answered in the article's 2nd sentence:
> And what if, in spite of your efforts to find out whether the event took place or not
So it's historical investigation. It may be personal narrative too, but that's an addition, not a displacement, of historical investigation.
> It's not trying to settle the question of whether the wolves exist or not.
From the bloody article, which you haven't read "In the weeks and months that followed, I did what I could to investigate the [that 'wolves had ruled the city'] matter more thoroughly" - so he did try to settle the question - if he was not then why was he investigating it?
Reality matters. It describes in the article about the jews' situation - in your view should the jews have simply risen above the reality of the situation? Stayed put and simply made it irrelevant with aloof, fluffy thinking?
Fuck this. This morning I received a text message from a woman who's parents (one still alive, though not long if covid gets to her) were directly affected by the nazis. I don't know the story, I think they escaped europe to come to the UK when things got nasty.
Time passes, people forget, the ground is laid yet again for all the bad shit to happen once more. This literary "can't be arsed" bollocks is part of that paving, and I'm not having it.
Think about a detective story. It's the story of a detective who's trying to solve a case. That doesn't necessarily mean that the story ends with every loose end tied up and certainty as to who committed the crime. (Of course, that is what typically happens in a classic detective story, but it's not necessary.)
In the particular case of the wolves, it's obviously difficult to draw any firm conclusions about whether they were there or not, as the article explains. ("Which brings me back to the place where I began and the question that has no answer: What to believe when you can’t be sure whether a supposed fact is true or not true?")
I think you just like the article and are trying to defend it on that personal front. That's ok. I dislike it and attack it for ...various reasons. That's OK too. If we can't meet we can just accept that too, and depart on good terms. Thanks for trying to explain it, and good luck.
A lot of people naturally ramble and there are also certainly quality magazines that go for a longer more literary style (e.g. The New Yorker) that you apparently don't care for.
The Economist, while it likes its clever turns of phrase, especially in headlines, is both well-written/edited and direct.
I had exactly that example in mind.
If you like that kind of writing, you can consider subscribing. (I used to read it cover to cover as a uni student, but have since grown out of it.)
How in the world is this not recognized earlier? He got awarded in 2003, but that is still way too late.
I think we should have a list in which all stories of underdeserved computer scientists should be displayed. Alan Turing's example is a well-known one. I still can't believe how he was treated. But apparently he isn't the only example of being underdeserved.
> That program, which he described as a “shell” around the computer’s whirring innards, gave inspiration—and a name—to an entire class of software tools, called command-line shells, that still lurk below the surface of modern operating systems.
how much duplication of effort and fighting at cross purposes .. I guess up until the failure of ATM and eventual submission to voice over ip.
pretty sad how much effort was expended on things like gossip, and how many standards were warped in an attempt at reconciliation.
Bing part of creating such a main element in the world it's just crazy
Is this still true?