> Every time I run into one of his idiosyncratic terms, it interrupts my train of thought, and dislodges any argument he had been constructing there.
In the spirit of ergodic literature, such as the use of extensive, awkward footnotes in Infinite Jest, some consider this to be a good and effective thing. If the reader isn't willing to put in the cognitive effort to constantly overcome this and extract the meaning of the overall argument, then that reader was probably just looking for some easy confirmation bias reason to disgree or criticize in the first place.
By constantly jarring you out of feeling comfortable while reading, it means that, if you are determined to read it seriously, you will have to exert more effort and by the end will likely have gotten much, much more out of it than if it had been designed to feel pleasant for the reader.
I actually love this style of writing and can't get enough of it. I also like the music of the band Swans and eat lots of meals with bitter foods (like huitlacoche, bitter melon, extremely earthy green tea). I don't know what it is, but I feel this kind of constant, just-on-the-cusp-of-being-too-unpleasant disruption for almost any sense qualia really leads me to appreciate things more, dig into them more deeply, retain more about them later on, and quickly separate things I do care about consuming from things I don't care about consuming.
It's kind of like putting up with the pain of a deep tissue massage to get the more satisfying muscular relaxation that comes later.
Well it's nice that the true believers get something entertaining to read, but there are a lot of people looking for reasons to disagree or criticise who might find themselves converted if he put in some effort to address his arguments to them. As the figurehead of Free Software, we should expect more from him than esoteric literature.
It's not the true believers who should be happiest about the effects of ergodic writing. Instead, it's the ones who disagree, but for serious reasons. If someone would only be converted if the writer makes it super easy, then I think e.g. Stallman feels like why should he waste his time on someone like that?
In the spirit of ergodic literature, such as the use of extensive, awkward footnotes in Infinite Jest, some consider this to be a good and effective thing. If the reader isn't willing to put in the cognitive effort to constantly overcome this and extract the meaning of the overall argument, then that reader was probably just looking for some easy confirmation bias reason to disgree or criticize in the first place.
By constantly jarring you out of feeling comfortable while reading, it means that, if you are determined to read it seriously, you will have to exert more effort and by the end will likely have gotten much, much more out of it than if it had been designed to feel pleasant for the reader.
I actually love this style of writing and can't get enough of it. I also like the music of the band Swans and eat lots of meals with bitter foods (like huitlacoche, bitter melon, extremely earthy green tea). I don't know what it is, but I feel this kind of constant, just-on-the-cusp-of-being-too-unpleasant disruption for almost any sense qualia really leads me to appreciate things more, dig into them more deeply, retain more about them later on, and quickly separate things I do care about consuming from things I don't care about consuming.
It's kind of like putting up with the pain of a deep tissue massage to get the more satisfying muscular relaxation that comes later.