[gyulai]

The world is made up of phenomena that mostly are pretty complex and require explanations that are equally complex.

Unfortunately the world is filled with people who lay on others the responsibility to "explain complex things in a simple way" or else be labelled bad communicators. Those are mostly people whose minds can't handle complexity and who are engaging in cognitive dissonance reduction. They don't like to think of themselves as dumb, so they'd rather think of their opposites as bad communicators.

But there is no such thing as a "complex thing explained simply". There are only the kinds of explanations that H. L. Mencken speaks of when he says:

"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." [1]

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

[club_tropical]

> The world is made up of phenomena that mostly are pretty complex

The word “made up” is doing a lot of work there. Do you mean like a butterfly wing makes up the world around you or central banking?

One of these is not so much “complex” as it is mysterious, alluring, captivating, and we have no explanation for it, complex or otherwise.

The other is exactly like the giant labyrinth constructed around a lie. Complex for its own protection - synthethic complexity that you can skip if you know the shortcut to the heart of the maze.

[gyulai]

I don't believe that no explanation exists for the "butterfly wing" kind of complexity, I merely believe that such an explanation is not yet known to any human, owing to the large magnitude of that kind of complexity, and so we frequently use terms like "randomness" to brush over those kinds of gaps in our ability to explain things and impose boundaries between what's known and what's unknown.

I agree that some complexities in the area of culture like law, religion, political institutions etc. are self-referential and ultimately serve no purpose or are even counterproductive relative to their presumed purpose.

The important thing is that I wouldn't attach a negative value-judgment to complexity, like saying complexity is always evil or bad or serves nefarious purposes. It is precisely the unwillingness to engage with complexity that perpetuates it.

[club_tropical]

> The important thing is that I wouldn't attach a negative value-judgment to complexity, like saying complexity is always evil or bad or serves nefarious purposes.

I would and I do.

> It is precisely the unwillingness to engage with complexity that perpetuates it.

No. It is the chimpout, the excessive disproportionate and cruel response of labyrinth-makers against those who dare to cut to the heart of the maze, that perpetuates the artificial complexity through intimidation.

They would LOVE for you to “engage with complexity” - that means walking into the labyrinth of their construction, a turf they fully control. Nothing gives them more joy than seeing you squirm around the maze, wasting away trying to “understand” Modern Monetary Theory or why The Court upheld starre decisis here but created a new precedent there, like these things are emergent properties of nature like butterfly wings.