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by manofmanysmiles 98 days ago
> I’m curious why you perceive their statement to be made as if it’s a pronouncement from God and not a simply a statement of their view on the issue.

To me it's basic grammar.

The sentence structure is approximately:

X is Y.

I consider this a statement of fact, or perhaps en equivalence relation. This is what was labeling a pronouncement from God.

(The idea that how your audience receives the communication is their problem and not yours) < X

is

(entirely why

some engineers are shit communicators and seem lost when facing the realities of human culture and politics.) < Y

Parsing it more carefully, the word "some" is leaving a hole for a lot of ambiguity that I did not see earlier.

So more careful reading reveals it as

X entirely explains property (are shit communicators) for a subset of the entities designated as engineers.

Even with these qualifies it is stating X is Y, rather than "In my experience X is Y."

I know in school I was taught to write this way. I find it confusing, and reveals something interesting about the person saying these words.

However maybe the real problem is I don't actually know what the words mean.

Perhaps I need to interpret it as the following:

In OPs view of the world, X is Y is true.

Perhaps that is what you're calling a "communication style", with a lot not being said explicitly.

Thank you for your comments, I am going to contemplate.

Edit: I just read my original comment and it is full of X is Y statements. I guess I'm full of shit. I'll try harder next time!

1 comments

It’s not a case of “try harder”. My only point was that emotions run through all human interactions. That’s how it actually is. People very, very frequently make decisions based entirely on emotion and then produce a logical argument post hoc for the decision.

It’s valuable to be aware of how humans actually act.

I also completely agree.

My "try harder" was with regard to doing exactly what I had just had an emotional reaction to and criticized.