[irjustin]

Such is my pet peeve.

Soap box - Analogies simply don't help. They invariably have some flaw and rarely aid in actual understanding as is the case with the anode/cathode reference. I know 100% of readers understand that countries want to attract talent, but <100% of people understand anode+cathode functions.

It gets worse when others attempt to build off the analogy and so it becomes flawed on top of flawed. At some point, semantic arguments begin, i.e. source of electrons, and now we're quite far from countries+talent.

STOP USING ANALOGIES

[agubelu]

Would you say that analogies are like a sink where meaning and intentionality is lost?

[HenryBemis]

You brought in my mind the "Elon walking in with a sink" and saying "let that sink in".

[npteljes]

I wholeheartedly agree. I have both a hard time to grasp when others are using analogies, especially when they use phrases that are wrong in the public consciousness, like "fish rots from the head" - no, fish rots from the softer places first, or from wherever, the head is not particular.

Pet peeve - soapbox is also used in an abstract way here, not better than the overuse of analogies. A whole century has since passed since people routinely stood on literal soapboxes.

Furthermore, and I was (am?) guilty of this myself, people often use analogies and other kinds of abstract speech to hide the fact that they have no idea what is going on, or they don't know how to express something. And then the responsibility to decode meaning is passed on to the listener.

[phendrenad2]

Okay you have two complaints about analogies: They're leaky abstractions (people get tripped up on the mismatch), and people don't understand the analogy domain (and miss the analogy entirely).

The former is mostly a problem for a certain kind of concrete-thinking persons, and the former can be solved by picking a more universally understood analogy domain (like puppies). So analogies can be good, given the right audience and analogy domain.

[7bit]

Analogies are a great tool to illustrate problems, to make the issue more accessible. So I don't think the issue is with analogies, but analogies that are far more complex that the issue he wants to illustrate.

In the specific context you're replying, however, I agree that any analogy would not add any useful information.

[malux85]

You're making a huge assumption yourself - that the goal of communication is to appeal to the greatest number of readers. This is not always true and often deliberately not always true.

[7bit]

"Appeal to" and "being understood by" are two different things.

You can write a text that appeals to a small audience, but is understood by a big audience.

You can also write a text that would appeal to a big audience - but doesn't because no one understands it.

It's not hard to write a text that can be understood by a large audience. Using an analogy that only some people understand is counter productive as analogies are used exactly to allow the audience to illustrate the problem.

[malux85]

The core of my response was not about appealing vs understanding, but about the objective function being to max(number) with whatever operator (appeal or understand)

But you demonstrated that in a beautiful way with your misunderstanding! How wonderfully meta! QED

[roenxi]

Some of the best pieces of art are when a smart person wants to communicate a subversive idea to another smart person without anyone pedestrian arcing up. It can lead to wonderful comedy.