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Comment by o1iver | Hacker News Reader

You didn't say that per se, but I felt it in the undertone of the whole essay. See some of these sentences:

"As I was doing it I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it was only then I realized he hadn't said very much."

"Being a really good speaker is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, but in many ways pushes you in the opposite direction."

"But here again there's a tradeoff between smoothness and ideas. All the time you spend practicing a talk, you could instead spend making it better."

I know quite a few people who are great thinkers and great speakers and maybe that is why I found the article a bit offensive in that regard.

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I try to make the strongest claims I can that are true. If I believed something as extreme as what you claim I said, I'd say it. Which means if I didn't say it, I didn't say it.

Though the difference in meaning between what you claim I said and what you're able to quote me as saying may seem small to you, there is a critical difference between them: what you claim I said is false, and the sentences you quote are true. I think we both agree on that. Or do you think any of the sentences I actually wrote are false?

I don't know you personally. I've read the majority of your essays. Your essays are well thought out and that what you write is purposeful. However, it isn't entirely unreasonable to think that you may[2] you have conveyed something in your writing that you didn't intend. Such a thing must occur occasionally.

I agree with the person you responded to that your essay did come across as having as an undercurrent that good speakers tend not have as much depth in what they say. What you say about spending time on delivery coming at the cost (sometimes!) of content makes sense when I think of politicians and salesmen. I'm don't agree when it comes to more cerebral settings.

[1] edit: Changed "It appears..." to "Your.." because your essays are well thought out and purposeful. It's not just an appearance.

[2] edit: Added the word "may".

Here is an important tradeoff between speaking and writing. Writing allows the user more room to color the information with their own experiences. For example the words "a very long time" conjures up some concept for a reader -- but when a listener hears "a very long time" from an old person versus a young person they may hear those as two different things. It's important and possibly absent information here that "if [you] didn't say it, [you] didn't say it." Inference is an incredibly powerful tool of persuasion and used often.

Gesture, tone, emphasis, etc... can give an incredible amount of information that people may process quickly and easily. It may alleviate some confusion created by the readers personal interpretation of words.

I think this thread well covers benefits and drawbacks of written versus spoken word. For me, I think of it like I think of various technologies available for a project. There are different tradeoffs and I must consider what I am trying to accomplish, what the pain points are going to be, who my users are, what is available, and make a careful choice.

I understand and agree with you, so I will take back that statement and simply say that that was my impression and not what was actually meant.

Perhaps if you had been explaining this on stage instead of trying to write it down it would've been more clear. ;)

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