In Defence of Jargon

People used to say (maybe still do? I'm not sure) that we should use less jargon to increase accessibility to writings on LW, i.e. make it easier to outsider to read. 

I think this is mostly a confused take. The underlying problem is inferential distance. Geting rid of the jargon is actually unhelpful since it hides the fact that there is an inferential distance. 

When I want to explain physics to someone and I don't know what they already know, I start by listing relevant physics jargon and ask them what words they know. This is a super quick way to find out what concepts they already have, and let me know what level I should start on. This work great in Swedish since in Swedish most physics words are distinct from ordinary words, but unfortunately don't work as well in English, which means I have to probe a bit deeper than just checking if they recognise the words.

Jargon isn't typically just synonyms to some common word, and when it is, I predict that it didn't start out that way, but that the real meaning was destroyed by too many people not bothering to learn the word properly. This is because people invent new words (jargon) when they need a new word to point to a new concept that didn't already have a word.

I seen some post by people who are not native to LW trying to fit in and be accepted by using LW jargon, without bothering to understand the underling concepts or even seem to notice that this is something they're supposed to do.  The result is very jarring and rather than making the post look read like a typical LW post, their misuse of LW jargon makes it extra obvious that they are not a native. Edit to add: This clearly illustrates that the jargon isn't just synonyms to words/concepts they already know. 

The way to make LW more accessible is to embrace jargon, as a clear signal of assumed prior knowledge of some concept, and also have a dictionary, so people can look up words they don't know. I think this is also more or less what we're already doing, because it's kind of the obvious thing to do. 

There is basically zero risk that the people wanting less jargon will win this fight, because jargon is just too useful for communication, and humans really like communication, especially nerds. But maybe it would be marginally helpful for more people to have an explicit model of what jargon is and what it's for, which is my justification for this quick take.