HI I WANT TO READ THIS.

(Spoilers: it's probably a metaphor!!!)

Thank you for reading my story!

This started as something terse and didactic, which felt like really bad territory for the piece. I'm kind of relieved that you took away the intended content.

I can't think of a non-metaphorical expansion of your take that isn't (1) deeply insensitive to my stated needs (2) a generally poor reading of the original post (3) at odds with basic understanding of what the function of language is.

I don't know exactly what you think I want. I want to be understood and I want to be seen as good based on that understanding. I'm not asking for a Spock-level mind-meld with the opposing party. I'm not asking that every single person in the world understand me exactly as intended the first time they read it. I'm asking for an end to smug, self-satisfactory, nitpicking interpretations ultimately designed to draw me into shaming-based social rituals that I refuse to be a part of.

Maybe it would be helpful for me to clarify a specific example of what I'm so pissed about. It appeared in the original post but I could have been clearer. The thing I'm pissed about in this case is that you can't mention Scott Alexander here without performatively mocking him or explaining why you didn't performatively mock him, which I know because I've watched other people try it. (The only reason you didn't see a henpecking response in this case is that in my original post, I spent two paragraphs heading it off.)

The general pattern of my existence online is that whenever I acknowledge a political position that's unpopular, or the existence of a political figure that's unpopular, even if I'm taking great pains to indicate that I disagree with it, people will arrive to specifically accuse me of believing the exact opposite of what I said I believed. It's entirely possible that the inadequacy of language plays some role here, but the apparent reason the communication fails is that something about me seems to have caused the other person to decide they want to force me into the conceptual category of "people they hate."

I am not a particularly pleasant person! I often try to be, but like, I actually have to try. I think it is common for people to decide that they dislike me before they have a clear reason why. But I also think a lot of people engage with online content in a way that is purely based on skimming takes off the top, analyzing them for their badness, and announcing personal superiority to the people who had the gall to post bad takes.

None of this falls into the territory covered by your impossibility result from systems biology regarding language. (although I doubt the impossibility result to begin with) This is mostly accounted for by pernicious cultiness of advanced online communities, and the futile and self-negating way I have to struggle to correct for it.

The uncharitable interpretation of your comment is that you think communication is impossible. If you really, sincerely think one person communicating an idea to another person successfully is impossible, burn all the textbooks and also most of the professors. If it takes equivocating over "full" communication and you're willing to concede the point as far as other stuff goes then fine, my red may be your blue. I'm at peace with that.

If you think there are some things that could be communicated linguistically but generally aren't, for a reason that is not the fault of the speaker or the hearer, I agree. It doesn't cause me distress when someone still assumes good faith about me but also misunderstands me -- I've talked about what causes me distress. If it's not obvious to you that people who post takes that go beyond the superficial attract way more of that distress -- I mean, the sealioning and tedium I'm usually met with -- then I want to post on whatever internet you grew up on, because mine is defective.

You have added, as a consolation prize, "maybe writing is good for peace and a bit of fun." Great, I'll keep that in mind when those are what I want. Language is not a dance I am intermittently doing, it is how I exist. There's not another thing for me to be doing when this thing isn't working.

I will propose a theory in alternative to yours: My metaphorical gut may not be entirely wrong for screaming that it wants to be filled. Getting the attention (even maladaptively) may make some progress towards solving my problem.

This is an option that few people will actually consider. Desiring attention is so incredibly stigmatized that the idea of a legitimate need for attention, even in the suboxone-level form of "being understood and having one's ideas acknowledged," is openly ridiculed.

(In this comment thread I have openly attempted to reclaim "narcissism" as a dimension of personality rather than a slur against the mentally ill and I have done so with the expectation that these efforts will be read by many people as pure invective. So far my expectation has been validated and, even worse, I've fallen into the pattern of periodically using that word in a way I hate.)

This ridicule serves the ends of powerful people and is likely the result of an accidental conspiracy. All the social systems in the world exist to sell back attention -- feeling loved, respected and valued for free is completely incompatible with the business model of every advertiser and every social media platform. As with every social rule, all the social power accrues in the hands of the people who don't respect that social rule.

In the near future and far future I'm going to attempt to express what I mean clearly enough that it will be obvious who is interpreting me in a frivolous and senseless way, with the expectation that they will still do it.

Sure, I go for this explanation!

This seems bleak but not inaccurate. Not a big fan of it. I'll be economical by not explaining why.

The plan isn't totally serious, but the worldview I'm promoting, which you seem to be picking up on, actually is serious.

The observation I have made is that most people in positions of power were selected by people in previous positions of power, usually for their affability and willingness to comply. Most of the most powerful people I have met were total conformists in practically every way, although they usually had high general intelligence.

Oh. I don't know how to get other people to vote better. I know things about software, I guess!

Stuck in my brain: I used to work at a dating site for Indian people, and one of the things we tried was "LLM-generated pickup lines."

I don't remember most of them and we never made the feature public, but one of them sticks out in my mind for being the most incomprehensible.

Guy-to-girl:

What's your remedy for a Bollywood love affair?

Wait, who is "they" in this situation? There aren't enough CEOs for me to care about who they vote for, but I care about the other stuff they're doing.