Read on Twitter
There are two things I want to talk about. A summary, for those of you who find me intolerable at my best:
1. Command of jargon does not matter, and is not the same thing as command of a concept.
2. “academic musing” or academia-adjacent threading is oft times blatantly false
1. Command of jargon does not matter, and is not the same thing as command of a concept.
2. “academic musing” or academia-adjacent threading is oft times blatantly false
There are a lot of people on here that come off as clever, intimidatingly so. Their tweets are full of obscure references, quotes, and thoughts constructed carefully to draw you in - these people present themselves as an authority, or at least v knowledgeable about the subject
Their discussion here is constructed in a way to be purposefully inaccessible, and then that same discourse is used as a weapon
These accounts are focused on discourse that starts w “the majority of people don’t know this”, and then they graciously Enlighten Us, as they are so much better than us. There is a misstep here: having not heard of a term isn’t the same thing as not understanding the concept
Jargon is used as a barricade: an in-group versus outgroup marker of exclusivity. If you have not heard the jargon they employ, you are not worthy of the conversation. If you have not heard their specific terminology, you don’t *deserve* to be speaking to them
I am trying not to subtweet, but a specific example comes to mind - though they are not the only sinner here: “the majority of financial advisors have never heard of ___”, where blank is some esoteric terminology, but in essence boils down to “selling puts on the S&P 500”
Do you actually think that most professionals don’t understand that? Do you really think you’re better for your opaque terminology? Does it help you sleep at night knowing how smart you must look? Are you so vain that you think you > a standard deviation away from average?
Jargon also makes this an exclusive secret little tree fort club. This is already prevalent within finance, but some of you take it to an extreme. Oh, you’ve never heard of gamma hedging? You don’t belong. You’re clearly not capable of the same things I am.
I mean, I sit behind a computer all day and buy when my theo values are .10 under and sell when they’re .20 over. I know everything about convexity. You don’t? You clearly couldn’t understand. We are not the same. Make no mistake -- I am better than you.
Of course, not everyone in these communities is like that. I am not here to talk about the kind hearted people, or those who don’t have an agenda and use jargon for specificity. If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t force it.
On to my second point - others here seek approval (or something?) so badly they use their jargon to construct these sentences which sound incredibly smart, rational, and well thought out… only when one actually examines them, they make little to no sense.
It sounds very clever to say a phrase like “the contango of labor due to epistemic control” or “the backwardation of highly reflexive commoditization via price inelasticity”, but these phrases don’t actually mean anything, do they?
These things are intended to make you seem like the same in-group, a head-nod to the liquidity of shared ideas (do you see how obnoxious that sounds?), but they lead to phrases that people will parrot without grasping the concept, because you’re not explaining anything real.
Before this gets longer, and I lose focus: the use of jargon for jargon’s sake is trite. Most attempts made to “muse” on a subject are solely mental masturbation. Some of these faux-academic circle jerks specialize in conflating exposure with understanding, and it is pretentious
You can’t present with incredulity towards other’s ignorance and simultaneously act as if you’re trying to be accessible. The two are diametrically opposed. Not encountering terms like you doesn’t mean that one is incapable of understanding, only that their exposure was different
Getting on your high horse, or pretending to in order to be seen as “smart” by others is understandable in that all humans need to feel accepted and as if they belong – but it doesn’t add any knowledge or truth to the world, just barriers to understanding
Oh, and I lied about cursing: so many of y’all really need to lighten the fuck up. You’re goddamn intolerable at times, you know? I’m done now.
