I am often torn a bit on this one, depending on the cases.
Don’t get me wrong, management lingo is undeniably bullshit, trying to hide how simple what you’re saying actually is, and giving yourself stature and legitimacy.
But I would argue that there are fields were the emergence of complex concepts (and lingo, and notations to define them) is a necessary evil. For sure even there, there are people who abuse it to big themselves up, but I also think a lot of the time, either the thing you’re speaking of is genuinely complicated, or it’s just not well understood enough. Sometimes I really wish I could say things in a simpler way, both in concepts and expression, but I can’t find a way to make it so. Not by malice, not to appear to know more, but genuinely because I don’t understand it enough yet either and that’s the best I’ve got.
Having experienced it first-hand, I am more forgiving to this (depending on the attitude of the person spouting the jargon) and don’t automatically assume all technical-sounding terms are automatically bullshit. They often are, but not always.
I recently (2 years) got into management against my better judgement. I dont do all this lingo bs and my team scores are always the highest. Its almost like if you treat your team like people, and peers, they respect you and WANT to work for you, thus being better employees.
Good management is just good people skills. If you don’t have them, intentionally defanging your speech/correspondence helps prevent blowups. Unfortunately for people working under managers with bad people skills, this doesn’t actually make up for and mostly just highlights their managers’ deficits.
Tl;dr: management speak is intentionally harmless in and of itself, but is an obvious symptom of bad management.
When you don’t know shit you think it should be simpler, when you slightly understand it then you end up using technical terms because you know those terms apply and aren’t confident enough to replace them, and then once you know enough you get confident just describing everything as bags within bags.
My point being that for some stuff, you just can’t describe things as bags within bags, irrelevant of where you are on the scale, at least not without being quite intellectually dishonest and oversimplifying.
I am not saying I am on top of the scale, I am saying I’ve met and worked with people on top of the scale (and couldn’t keep up), and they don’t explain things with bags within bags.
EDIT: for clarity, there are things that are too complicated for everyone right now. One day we may understand them well enough that someone can explain it in layman’s term without loss of precision, but to get to that point, we must accept that we need to work with complex notations and lingo. Example: in the past, only Newton and Leibniz and a handful of others understood calculus. Now it’s taught in high school. Newton and Leibniz were not in the middle of the bell curve, nor did they overcomplicate their theory to make it sound fancy.
Eh I don’t really agree, depending on how simple you’re talking. Bags within bags, or dumbing things down to a grade school level, then sure, there are topics that can’t be described succinctly.
But if you’re talking about simplifying things down to the point that anyone who took a bit of undergrad math/science can understand, then pretty much everything can be described in simple and easy to understand ways.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen many people at the top who can’t, but in every case, it’s not because of the topics’ inherent complexity, but either because they don’t actually understand the topics as well as they may seem, or because they lack the social skills (or time / effort / setting) to properly analogize and adjust for the listener.
The meme is about technical science jobs. There are absolutely technical science jobs where you cannot communicate key ideas and concepts without a) the person you’re describing it to needing more than “a bit of undergrad math/science” and b) if you try to explain it without using specialist terminology, you’ll spend an unnecessary hour for every quarter hour of content recalling the specialist definition of things because, for some reason, you refuse to use the precise word that the scientific community have agreed means exactly that.
No, I’m talking about engineers and scientists communicating with project managers, designers, lawyers, business people, and the many many other people who work in the same industry but do not have technical backgrounds.
And I am talking about the fact that believing that nothing is complicated and that complexity is always made up can be a dangerous, anti-intellectual and anti-academic argument.
Of course, if you’re talking with people who don’t need to actually do the job and only understand enough of it, and you still speak like to a specialist, you’re not only in the middle, but also potentially (but not necessarily) kind of a dick.
But reading this and your example, and the fact we seem to be miscommunicating somewhat, I do wonder this: English is not my first language, what do you include in “technical science job”? Is it a specific job or group of jobs? I took it to mean any job with tech or science workers.
EDIT: further explanation of what went through in my head, which may clarify interpretation and intent. Having the management lingo example made me interpret that curve as a: all this jargon is just bullshit and you could do better without it. Definitely true imo with management lingo.
But what I was trying to say, maybe poorly, is that some technical jargon, in some areas, is meaningful. Explaining in layman’s term is dumbing down. Nothing wrong with that when it fits the purpose, but you still sacrifice something in the process.
I am often torn a bit on this one, depending on the cases.
Don’t get me wrong, management lingo is undeniably bullshit, trying to hide how simple what you’re saying actually is, and giving yourself stature and legitimacy.
But I would argue that there are fields were the emergence of complex concepts (and lingo, and notations to define them) is a necessary evil. For sure even there, there are people who abuse it to big themselves up, but I also think a lot of the time, either the thing you’re speaking of is genuinely complicated, or it’s just not well understood enough. Sometimes I really wish I could say things in a simpler way, both in concepts and expression, but I can’t find a way to make it so. Not by malice, not to appear to know more, but genuinely because I don’t understand it enough yet either and that’s the best I’ve got.
Having experienced it first-hand, I am more forgiving to this (depending on the attitude of the person spouting the jargon) and don’t automatically assume all technical-sounding terms are automatically bullshit. They often are, but not always.
But management lingo is. 100%.
I recently (2 years) got into management against my better judgement. I dont do all this lingo bs and my team scores are always the highest. Its almost like if you treat your team like people, and peers, they respect you and WANT to work for you, thus being better employees.
Good management is just good people skills. If you don’t have them, intentionally defanging your speech/correspondence helps prevent blowups. Unfortunately for people working under managers with bad people skills, this doesn’t actually make up for and mostly just highlights their managers’ deficits.
Tl;dr: management speak is intentionally harmless in and of itself, but is an obvious symptom of bad management.
You’re literally just describing this meme.
When you don’t know shit you think it should be simpler, when you slightly understand it then you end up using technical terms because you know those terms apply and aren’t confident enough to replace them, and then once you know enough you get confident just describing everything as bags within bags.
My point being that for some stuff, you just can’t describe things as bags within bags, irrelevant of where you are on the scale, at least not without being quite intellectually dishonest and oversimplifying.
I am not saying I am on top of the scale, I am saying I’ve met and worked with people on top of the scale (and couldn’t keep up), and they don’t explain things with bags within bags.
EDIT: for clarity, there are things that are too complicated for everyone right now. One day we may understand them well enough that someone can explain it in layman’s term without loss of precision, but to get to that point, we must accept that we need to work with complex notations and lingo. Example: in the past, only Newton and Leibniz and a handful of others understood calculus. Now it’s taught in high school. Newton and Leibniz were not in the middle of the bell curve, nor did they overcomplicate their theory to make it sound fancy.
Eh I don’t really agree, depending on how simple you’re talking. Bags within bags, or dumbing things down to a grade school level, then sure, there are topics that can’t be described succinctly.
But if you’re talking about simplifying things down to the point that anyone who took a bit of undergrad math/science can understand, then pretty much everything can be described in simple and easy to understand ways.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen many people at the top who can’t, but in every case, it’s not because of the topics’ inherent complexity, but either because they don’t actually understand the topics as well as they may seem, or because they lack the social skills (or time / effort / setting) to properly analogize and adjust for the listener.
The meme is about technical science jobs. There are absolutely technical science jobs where you cannot communicate key ideas and concepts without a) the person you’re describing it to needing more than “a bit of undergrad math/science” and b) if you try to explain it without using specialist terminology, you’ll spend an unnecessary hour for every quarter hour of content recalling the specialist definition of things because, for some reason, you refuse to use the precise word that the scientific community have agreed means exactly that.
Thanks, I gaslit myself into thinking I misunderstood what “technical science job” meant.
Anyone who took undergrad maths/science is not layman’s term.
I also disagree with this for the record but that’s besides the point.
It is for a white collar job where most people have degrees.
“amongst the people who understand the jargon and notations, jargon and notations are layman’s term”
Sure, I guess that’s true if you limit your sample, this is not what I took the meme to mean but ok.
No, I’m talking about engineers and scientists communicating with project managers, designers, lawyers, business people, and the many many other people who work in the same industry but do not have technical backgrounds.
And I am talking about the fact that believing that nothing is complicated and that complexity is always made up can be a dangerous, anti-intellectual and anti-academic argument.
Of course, if you’re talking with people who don’t need to actually do the job and only understand enough of it, and you still speak like to a specialist, you’re not only in the middle, but also potentially (but not necessarily) kind of a dick.
But reading this and your example, and the fact we seem to be miscommunicating somewhat, I do wonder this: English is not my first language, what do you include in “technical science job”? Is it a specific job or group of jobs? I took it to mean any job with tech or science workers.
EDIT: further explanation of what went through in my head, which may clarify interpretation and intent. Having the management lingo example made me interpret that curve as a: all this jargon is just bullshit and you could do better without it. Definitely true imo with management lingo.
But what I was trying to say, maybe poorly, is that some technical jargon, in some areas, is meaningful. Explaining in layman’s term is dumbing down. Nothing wrong with that when it fits the purpose, but you still sacrifice something in the process.