Comment on Proton is transitioning towards a non-profit structure | Proton
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks agoIs it?
I once told a teacher I’d write ten times the number of required words as long as I could pick a subject that actually warranted it. And I followed through.
The rare times I got prompts that were actually good, I would run out of paper on which to express everything I wanted expressed. (Yes, I’ve done writing assignments writing by hand.)
Outside academia no-one is enforcing a word-count. Unless you’re dealing with people that don’t actually read what you write and instead just look at net weight of the word-salad you threw at them, the content of the text is what matters.
Who takes offence at only a single paragraph, if it addresses their every concern and insecurity, and they are left feeling seen as they reach the final word?
conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
It’s the same philosophy, yeah. That more words means more substance and more “respect” or whatever to the message.
It’s not rational at all, but people genuinely don’t think that way. (Unless it’s a forum/social media, then 3 paragraphs is a wall of text that needs to have a 5 word TLDR, because none of it is rational).
The exaggerated version of a simple message once you have a working relationship is silly, but there are way too many times you don’t get to a working relationship at all without a wall of bullshit.
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
Ok, but do the people you’re referring to actually appreciate prose, or just skim-read through everything?
Because I’d wager it’s the latter, and that point you don’t even need to try to write something good. It’s fine to send them three paragraphs where the second and third ones just paraphrase the first.
conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Paraphrasing the first multiple times is still a big, distracting extra cognitive load, and it needs to hold up if they actually do pay attention to it. One time they notice the obvious bullshit can end a relationship. I won’t use an LLM for anything like this because it’s stupid, but that’s why people are doing it.
MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
You’re saying once they see the pointless fluff they themselves ask of people, for what it is, they’ll feel insulted?
Paraphrasing comes with built-in deniability. “Oh it’s just something I tend to do, I don’t mean anything by it”.
There is no way of bloating your prose that doesn’t come off as insulting when done with people who don’t appreciate volume over quality.