[jacquesm]

Or just using complicated language to say something simple in the first place.

Annoyingly, science is sometimes also guilty of this - as is the medical profession. It's a form of gatekeeping. It would be better if we all just used the simplest set of words to communicate a concept. There are valid reasons for using more complex terms, they serve as some kind of data compression mechanism, but more often than not they are simply obfuscation.

[bluefirebrand]

Using complicated language because it is more precise is not gatekeeping. Boiling it down into simpler language is going to make it less accurate and more prone to misunderstanding.

[beckman466]

> Using complicated language because it is more precise is not gatekeeping.

But that's not what OP said.

They said "science is sometimes also guilty of this". They didn't say "always guilty".

[howaboutnope]

Ain't HN the king of that..

"you are being disingenuous": 110 results

"you are being stupid": 4 results

[meheleventyone]

I get your point but disingenuous doesn’t mean remotely the same thing as stupid.

[howaboutnope]

Oh, you're right. But still:

"you are being deceitful" 1 result "you are being dishonest" 42 results

... if I tried them all they might add up to over 100, but still. It's hard to make the case with a few searches, maybe I shouldn't have started this ^^ It's just something I notice constantly. E.g. half of the time, "I'm not entirely sure I agree" is a sincere statement, the other half it's just "I disagree" in more words that are supposed to give an impression of depth that isn't there.

[jobigoud]

But "dishonest" is simpler language register than "deceitful". Doesn't that weakens your argument?

[howaboutnope]

I didn't mean to contrast the two with each other, but both with "disingenuous", of which they're synonyms.

[tux3]

My takeaway from your data is that people call each other various shades of dishonest a lot more than they call each other stupid.

And those are two very different things that don't got much to do with how big the words you type are.

It's easy to not be entirely honest in an argument due to various biases, or when you have some sort of emotional attachment to an argument. That can be a reasonable thing to point out.

Calling people stupid, on the other hand, that is pointless and purely inflammatory.